At first glance, the senator, like many in government, doesn’t seem to understand that growth in a project like Amtrak comes with investments. This is not the case in many government projects. For example, as worthy as getting poetry back into the schools may be, no amount of subsidy for poetry (through the National Endowment for the Arts) will put rhetoric and poetry back into American life; the culture changed 50 years ago: it’s not going to happen. On the other hand, the senator probably understands that Amtrak-like projects will grow with investments (subsidies). We can suspect he understands this when we see the Congress has no problem with highway and airline subsidies. The problem with Amtrak is that the government has made a higher level decision borne of popular American culture and politics; that trains are old-fashioned, bad and need to go. We shouldn’t be surprised that this bias is uniquely American, because our complete dependence on speed, independence, cars, tires and fuel is uniquely American as well. Amtrak will die a slow and painful death. Those who will miss it (those who can’t fly (oxygen bottles), those who live in certain towns (Springfield, IL), those who will not fly (fear), and those who prefer a different way of life (civilized) don’t have the political power to change this.
The Congress is nothing if not responsive to the people.