How the Elites Got New Cars. New Railroad Cars
How the Elites Got New Cars. New Railroad Cars
A lot of rich people are being subsidized by a lot of people who aren’t.
Once I built a railroad…
Brother can you spare me a dime.
---1930s song
In the book Overregulated, we go into detail about how the vaunted deregulation of U.S. transportation systems in the 20th Century never really happened. It’s a lie. The transportation industry remains heavily regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation and hundreds of other government agencies, and the “corporation” named “Amtrak” is not just regulated by government, DOT owns it.
After World War II, the American public began to switch from passenger trains to cars and planes. This was one reason why the passenger-travel services provided by the railroads began to lose money (another was, as we said, the accumulated sludge from decades of government taxation and regulation). When the Penn Central Railroad went bankrupt in 1970, Congress essentially nationalized it, funding it from then on with taxpayer dollars (most of those dollars coming, of course, from people who never rode the trains, trains which were in 1970 mostly used by commuters who worked at high-paying jobs in the biggest cities). Then government regulators, using taxpayer money, created Amtrak as a government-owned corporation in 1971 (its stock was and still is owned by the government and its board members, who are appointed by the President of the U.S.).
Amtrak always incurs an annual loss. I.e. it spends more money than it takes in by selling train tickets. That loss is covered by U.S. taxpayers. Like the U.S. Postal Service, Amtrak exists due to a forever-bailout. Tickets to ride on Amtrak would cost a lot more if Amtrak charged enough to pay its costs. So the people who ride the trains are being subsidized by the people who don’t.
A lot of rich people are being subsidized by a lot of people who aren’t.
Many or most of Amtrak’s passengers could easily pay for their fares. Many are very wealthy people, commuting between $multi-million homes in suburbs to jobs in New York City and Washington D.C., which pay $millions.
Stimulus for Wealthy Commuters
But, brother taxpayer, Amtrak and the government regulators who own and run it, want a lot more than your “dime”. They want $billions. Lots of $billions. And they get them. Via the politicians.
How did Amtrak spend the emergency Covid stimulus money? To cover the minimum expenses necessary to keep the trains running? Not exactly.
In 2021, Amtrak spent $2 billion on new passenger coach cars for the Northeast, new ones "...with more comfortable seating, improved disabled access, individual power outlets and 'a more contemporary food service experience',” reported the Wall Street Journal in the July 2021 article “Amtrak to Spend $7 Billion to Upgrade Passenger Trains”.
Thanks taxpaying working class people! Signed, Wealthy East Coast Commuters.
$billions to improve the commuting experience of wealthy East coast elites who preferred not to pay the full cost of the service themselves.
And now, as of August 2021, the new $1 trillion “infrastructure bill” is leaving the station with $66 billion in new subsidies for Amtrak, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Surely working single moms in Enid OK would be gratified to know that they were buying lavish seating and gourmet dining for the financiers who use government trains to commute to and from Wall Street, and for lobbyists riding from luxurious homes to work their gloriously high-paying “jobs” in Washington D.C. But the moms probably did not subscribe to the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal and so did not know about Covid stimulus purchase by the government railroad of $billions worth of luxury coaches. Almost no other media outlets reported the Amtrak coach upgrade story. And the WSJ which did so with glowing approval for the luxury upgrades, subsidized by American taxpayers few of whom ever would ride an Amtrak commuter "coach" or even see one. The coaches were for East Coast elites.
The procurement of the new coaches is "...the largest single order in Amtrak’s 50-year history, a spokesman said," according to the Wall Street Journal. Hurray! For reasons difficult to accurately explain — without using the words like “theft” and “criminal” and “politicians” — rich Leftist elites will ride in unprecedented comfort at the expense of unwealthy non-elite taxpayers!
—Rightful Freedom