Could the 850M in the Senate Stimulus Bill get Cut?

[Mike S.]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/02/gop...ries/index.html

This doesn't mean its a done deal, but apparently giving 850M to amtrak to repair cars, signals, rails etc....is not going to add jobs according to the republicans. Why do they hate trains so much?

 

[transit54]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/02/gop...ries/index.html
This doesn't mean its a done deal, but apparently giving 850M to amtrak to repair cars, signals, rails etc....is not going to add jobs according to the republicans. Why do they hate trains so much?

I'd like to see the list of activities that they don't consider wasteful spending before I pass judgments on what they do. I don't think that Republicans "hate trains," I think they view transit (be it trains, buses or anything else) as unnecessarily government subsidized and that the general tax burden could be lowered if such things were eliminated. However, that view fails to account for a major problem: that the true costs of automobile-based transportation are not assessed upon drivers. As a result, drivers are paying less than they should to drive, and transit needs to be subsidized to be competitive. To briefly use some economics terminology, the marginal private costs of driving are well below the marginal social costs of driving. If these costs were equal to each other (which would require a tax, a portion of which would go to transit/Amtrak/etc) then Amtrak/transit would require very little in terms of appropriations out of any general fund.

You see a misunderstanding of this logic when politicians argue that gas tax revenue should not be used to fund transit and only to build and maintain highways. The costs of driving extend beyond the costs of constructing roads and maintaining infrastructure, because automobile dependence results in costs to society that are not compensated for (congestion, pollution, costs of those who otherwise wouldn't need to own cars if we didn't have such an auto-centric infrastructure, and so on). The efficient, market based solution lies in a high fuel tax, a dedicated portion of which goes to Amtrak/transit. But that's not politically viable, sadly.

 

[Mike S.]

Then I just read another article saying senate democrats want to up transit funding....but could find no specific mention of Amtrak.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

The efficient, market based solution lies in a high fuel tax, a dedicated portion of which goes to Amtrak/transit. But that's not politically viable, sadly.

The biggest problem with that is that there are an awful lot of working class Americans who have to pay the fuel tax, and it would affect them a lot more than it would affect the rich (those with 100 times more money aren't likely to drive 100 times more miles every year). The current state of mass transit in this country is such that most people really don't have a good alternative to paying the fuel tax.

 

[transit54]

The efficient, market based solution lies in a high fuel tax, a dedicated portion of which goes to Amtrak/transit. But that's not politically viable, sadly.

The biggest problem with that is that there are an awful lot of working class Americans who have to pay the fuel tax, and it would affect them a lot more than it would affect the rich (those with 100 times more money aren't likely to drive 100 times more miles every year). The current state of mass transit in this country is such that most people really don't have a good alternative to paying the fuel tax.

I agree completely (in fact, I grew up in the place that had absolutely zero mass transit, no sidewalks and no means of getting anywhere without driving a car for a while). There's no way you could implement something like that short term. But what should be done is there should be a fuel tax declared now, to take effect, say, 10 years from now. Let's just say its $2 a gallon, less whatever the current tax is (so about $1.80 additional, if my memory serves). Each year, gas would go up 18 cents/gallon. Everyone would know this was going to happen, and subsequently, everyone's future actions would consider this. Sales of oversized vehicles would cease (I say 'oversized' because plenty of people in this country need large vehicles, especially businesses. But many buyers of large vehicles simply don't). Public transit would slowly start to ramp up. Politicians would face pressure to fund better train service and better transit. Next time families would move, they would consider transportation costs a bit more. Developers would begin to build more transit oriented development. Alternative fuel vehicles would sell better and move more quickly to market.

Oil prices are going to rise anyway - that's not a fact that can be argued. But if we implemented a long term ramp up in the fuel tax, we'd be able to anticipate the rise and react accordingly, rather than being blindsided when oil prices just start to rise on their own. And doing this would soften demand, keeping the real price of oil down longer and putting more of increase in price back into the pockets of Americans via infrastructure projects and transit-related jobs, rather than just fattening the profits of the oil companies.

 

[zoltan]

I'd like to see the list of activities that they don't consider wasteful spending before I pass judgments on what they do. I don't think that Republicans "hate trains," I think they view transit (be it trains, buses or anything else) as unnecessarily government subsidized and that the general tax burden could be lowered if such things were eliminated. However, that view fails to account for a major problem: that the true costs of automobile-based transportation are not assessed upon drivers. As a result, drivers are paying less than they should to drive, and transit needs to be subsidized to be competitive. To briefly use some economics terminology, the marginal private costs of driving are well below the marginal social costs of driving. If these costs were equal to each other (which would require a tax, a portion of which would go to transit/Amtrak/etc) then Amtrak/transit would require very little in terms of appropriations out of any general fund.
You see a misunderstanding of this logic when politicians argue that gas tax revenue should not be used to fund transit and only to build and maintain highways. The costs of driving extend beyond the costs of constructing roads and maintaining infrastructure, because automobile dependence results in costs to society that are not compensated for (congestion, pollution, costs of those who otherwise wouldn't need to own cars if we didn't have such an auto-centric infrastructure, and so on). The efficient, market based solution lies in a high fuel tax, a dedicated portion of which goes to Amtrak/transit. But that's not politically viable, sadly.

...I couldn't have put it better myself. If the MSC of driving were fully imposed upon the user, given transit operates far more efficiently in general, it would be naturally price competitive without any need for subsidy. Subsidy is required to compete with road transport, which effectively gains a subsidy through society paying for some of the costs of motoring.

 

[AlanB]

First let me say once again as I've said many times in the past, it's not fair to say that Republicans hate trains. In fact, out of 207 P42 engines that Amtrak owns, only one has been named and it was named in honor of former Republican Governor Tommy Thompson for his work on the Amtrak Board and for promoting Amtrak.

Second, had we not allowed our trains to be thrown away years ago, I suspect that they would need less subsidies right now than they do.

Third, we already do have a portion of the gas tax that is dedicated to transit funding. Approximately 2.86 cents of the 18.4 cents of Federal gas tax goes directly into transit funding and has done so since the 80's. Frankly a better solution to raising the gas tax, or at least raising it as much as is currently needed, would be to eliminate the 2.5 cents on each gallon that goes into deficit reduction.

Four, for years the freight RR's and even commuter RR's have helped to support the highway trust fund via taxes paid on the diesel fuel that they consume. So transit has actually helped to pay to build its competition. Only fair that the reverse is now true.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I agree completely (in fact, I grew up in the place that had absolutely zero mass transit, no sidewalks and no means of getting anywhere without driving a car for a while). There's no way you could implement something like that short term. But what should be done is there should be a fuel tax declared now, to take effect, say, 10 years from now. Let's just say its $2 a gallon, less whatever the current tax is (so about $1.80 additional, if my memory serves). Each year, gas would go up 18 cents/gallon. Everyone would know this was going to happen, and subsequently, everyone's future actions would consider this. Sales of oversized vehicles would cease (I say 'oversized' because plenty of people in this country need large vehicles, especially businesses. But many buyers of large vehicles simply don't). Public transit would slowly start to ramp up. Politicians would face pressure to fund better train service and better transit. Next time families would move, they would consider transportation costs a bit more. Developers would begin to build more transit oriented development. Alternative fuel vehicles would sell better and move more quickly to market.

I wonder if the right answer may be taxes that penalize new development by large developers that isn't transit oriented.

There are people who've lived their whole lives in some particular place, and I'm not sure it's fair to them to have high gas taxes to try to encourage them to move. There are plenty of people who've spent their lives in New Orleans who aren't interested in moving even if their homes are underwater.

 

[Larry H.]

Allen,

Perhaps it would be unfair to say they hate them, as I mentioned an you quoted a few days ago, I often have many things in common with Republicans and at times such as this one choose the other party candidate for among other things hopefully supporting expanded rail service. ( or perhaps better said "restored rail service"). I do get a bit irritated with them in general however for constantly insisting no one uses it and we don't need it while promoting more highways everywhere as if it wasn't a subsidy. I see where today they have blocked addition of funds for rail systems from being added to the senate bill. While in reality they did say however that if other things were removed to keep the total down they might not object. That would still surprise me because they do seem to be hell bent on stopping amtrak for the most part. And in a vain that got me in trouble on the other thread, one could hope the democrats would be a bit more interested in the general welfare of the whole country by supporting amtrak renewal at the expensive of some of the other more "pointed" projects that are not part of the General Good an more politically motivated.

 

[Larry H.]

I agree completely (in fact, I grew up in the place that had absolutely zero mass transit, no sidewalks and no means of getting anywhere without driving a car for a while). There's no way you could implement something like that short term. But what should be done is there should be a fuel tax declared now, to take effect, say, 10 years from now. Let's just say its $2 a gallon, less whatever the current tax is (so about $1.80 additional, if my memory serves). Each year, gas would go up 18 cents/gallon. Everyone would know this was going to happen, and subsequently, everyone's future actions would consider this. Sales of oversized vehicles would cease (I say 'oversized' because plenty of people in this country need large vehicles, especially businesses. But many buyers of large vehicles simply don't). Public transit would slowly start to ramp up. Politicians would face pressure to fund better train service and better transit. Next time families would move, they would consider transportation costs a bit more. Developers would begin to build more transit oriented development. Alternative fuel vehicles would sell better and move more quickly to market.

I wonder if the right answer may be taxes that penalize new development by large developers that isn't transit oriented.

There are people who've lived their whole lives in some particular place, and I'm not sure it's fair to them to have high gas taxes to try to encourage them to move. There are plenty of people who've spent their lives in New Orleans who aren't interested in moving even if their homes are underwater.

Recently on KMOX out of St. Louis there was some discussion about how the cities keep giving tax breaks to new retail and at the same time mom and pops and other malls or retail centers end up closing, in effect the tax break actually closed non subsidized retailers and then the government still didn't get any extra tax and often when the abatement was about to end or before the people that get the breaks would shut down. Resulting of course in less taxes to run the city.. This is a rampant problem that needs addressing, cities, towns, or states have instigated this bidding war to lure business at the expense of regular citizens.

This adds to the suburban sprawl that has left the cores of many small and large towns on the brink of disaster. Combing that incentive to constantly move outward and instead of the cities building and paying for roads and sewers, and other infrastructure it would seem that well thought out rail systems that encourage development and ridership would be a better answer. That along with the ability to walk places and do your shopping and leisure activities would make a big difference in fuel usage and local transit if done properly. There is a development called New Town that is very popular near St. Louis that incorporates much of this and has won some recent awards as one of the more successful developments along the old time city concepts. I see where they have purchased some street cars for possible installation at a later time?

Amtrak if done correctly from my perspective would be similarly useful at getting people off the roads and gas guzzling planes. But it would take a return to frequent and diverse routes, not the few hub cities we have now.

 

[sky12065]

Frankly a better solution to raising the gas tax, or at least raising it as much as is currently needed, would be to eliminate the 2.5 cents on each gallon that goes into deficit reduction.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you suggest an elimination of 2.5 cents especially when you compare that idea with the a stimilus refund check. As now learned the refund check is not for the most part resolving the financial problems because recipients are not going out and spending it in favor to saving for the future and businesses are not investing in new hirings in favor of improving their bottom lines. An elimination of the 2.5 cents will for the most part provide an upfront way for the consumers savings to find it's way into the economy right away.

Four, for years the freight RR's and even commuter RR's have helped to support the highway trust fund via taxes paid on the diesel fuel that they consume. So transit has actually helped to pay to build its competition. Only fair that the reverse is now true.

It doesn't have to actually reverse itself to be fair. It just needs for Amtrak to be put on an equal playing field which of course is way overdue.

As you know and some others do too, I am a Republican and as you alluded to not all us Republicans hate Amtrak. This one loves Amtrak as I'm sure many others do too! I wouldn't even call myself a strong Republican as I tend to lean more to the independent side than the conservative side, and as all Democrats are not Liberals, all Republicans are not Conservative - they are common misconceptions that are made all the time.

One thing I can tell you for sure though is that I CRINGE anytime I hear (be it from the left or the right) Amtrak being put down and/or suggestions made that funding should be cut or Amtrak should be eliminated. Makes me wonder why they pick on Amtrak, but hardly ever do I hear a discouraging word about Airline funding. IIRC a lot more funds are going in their direction than Amtraks! So I say it again... "EQUAL PLAYING FIELD," that's what Amtrak needs, an equal playing field!

 

[had8ley]

I agree completely (in fact, I grew up in the place that had absolutely zero mass transit, no sidewalks and no means of getting anywhere without driving a car for a while). There's no way you could implement something like that short term. But what should be done is there should be a fuel tax declared now, to take effect, say, 10 years from now. Let's just say its $2 a gallon, less whatever the current tax is (so about $1.80 additional, if my memory serves). Each year, gas would go up 18 cents/gallon. Everyone would know this was going to happen, and subsequently, everyone's future actions would consider this. Sales of oversized vehicles would cease (I say 'oversized' because plenty of people in this country need large vehicles, especially businesses. But many buyers of large vehicles simply don't). Public transit would slowly start to ramp up. Politicians would face pressure to fund better train service and better transit. Next time families would move, they would consider transportation costs a bit more. Developers would begin to build more transit oriented development. Alternative fuel vehicles would sell better and move more quickly to market.

I wonder if the right answer may be taxes that penalize new development by large developers that isn't transit oriented.

There are people who've lived their whole lives in some particular place, and I'm not sure it's fair to them to have high gas taxes to try to encourage them to move. There are plenty of people who've spent their lives in New Orleans who aren't interested in moving even if their homes are underwater.

I think the correct term here would be "Can't move" because of financial burdens. Apparently you've never had to deal with a "temporary" blue tarp for a roof before. There are still occupied homes in New Orleans that wear the famous "FEMA blue." I don't know where you live but would you want to come home tomorrow to an empty lot?