REALLY?????
Are you kidding me on this????
President Donald Trump IS costing American taxpayers’s MILLIONS in traveling to HIS properties and using the White House and having us pay the bill …..
MILLIONS…..
Republicans ARE getting more desperate by the hour ……
(Read below about Republicans efforts to defund the service which operates heavily in the Blue Northeast corridor states…)
“We are concerned that the apparent use of a struggling, resource-deprived, publicly-run service for political gain does not serve the best interests of Amtrak or the American taxpayers at this time,” wrote Reps. Eric A. “Rick” Crawford (R-Ark.), Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio), Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.)….
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A Biden campaign spokesman dismissed the allegations, saying that “anyone can charter a train with Amtrak.”
“Last time we checked, no one can charter the White House South Lawn for a political convention,” spokesman Matt Hill said in a statement. “Instead of wasting time on political stunts, congressional Republicans should stop ignoring Donald Trump’s blatant abuses of taxpayer money and government resources to enrich himself and his businesses.”
Donald K. Sherman, a former government ethics and oversight official and deputy director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the Trump administration has repeatedly tapped government resources to advance the president’s campaign, in violation of federal law….
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In recent years, Republicans have led efforts to defund Amtrak, which receives about $2 billion in federal subsidies. Republicans have consistently voted to slash funding to the railroad, blocked efforts to fund critical rail infrastructure and circulated plans to take the Northeast Corridor, the nation’s busiest rail corridor, out of Amtrak’s hands….
There are serious and legitimate arguments to be made about whether Amtrak’s social and economic utility justify spending General Fund dollars on it; also whether or not it is at all realistic to expect that (outside the Northeast and California corridors) Amtrak will ever be — as Congress demands — self-supporting.
But, considering where Trump’s and the core Republicans’ base lies, it’s politically rather unproductive to attack Amtrak. A lot of towns (too small for passenger airports) in the deep-red Northwest and Plains states (e.g. Montana, the Dakotas) and in many Southern states (e.g. Texas) rely on Amtrak to stay connected to the rest of their state and country, and fully expect to die without a rail stop.
Your second paragraph answers your first there DSD…
Ever since the 1930’s America HAS accepted that certain service’s are for the greater good and SHOULD have government support….