Train Wreck

Amtrak Infrastructure on Brink, DOT Warns
11/22/04 "The national passenger rail service risks a 'major point of failure' if infrastructure needs remain unaddressed, the U.S. Department of Transportation warned in a scathing report made public today." (Washington Post, Monday)

Of course for government, to receive a "scathing" report is to receive more money.

Economic consultants Jean Love and Wendell Cox and Cato senior fellow Stephen Moore argue, "Unfortunately, after 25 years of federal ownership and $13 billion of federal subsidies, Amtrak appears no closer to financial independence than the day taxpayer assistance began. This study shows that virtually every stated justification for continued Amtrak subsidies is based on myth, not reality.
--Amtrak makes a negligible contribution to the nation's transportation system. Amtrak represents just .007 percent of all daily commuter work trips and just 0.4 percent of all passengers making intercity trips.
--Amtrak's typical riders are not low-income Americans. Only 13 percent have incomes below $20,000.
--Amtrak has virtually no impact on reducing traffic congestion, pollution, or energy use. Even a doubling of train ridership would reduce energy consumption and traffic congestion by less than 0.1 percent.
--Amtrak is by far the most highly subsidized form of intercity transportation. The average taxpayer subsidy per Amtrak rider is $100, or 40 percent of the total per-passenger cost. On some of the long-distance routes, such as New York to Los Angeles, the taxpayer subsidy per passenger exceeds $1,000. It would be cheaper for taxpayers to close down expensive lines and purchase discount round-trip airfare for all the Amtrak riders."
--Cato Policy Analysis: "Amtrak at Twenty-Five: End of the Line for Taxpayer Subsidies," 1996,

Gregory Bresiger writes, "The problem, in a word, was politics. Unlike their transportation rivals, private railroad executives had never been good political players. For instance, in the 1970s and ’80s, aircraft and automobile lobbyists effectively argued that Lockheed and Chrysler could not be allowed to fail. Government loan guarantees saved those poorly run corporations. In the Penn Central crisis, there were no loan guarantees. With the birth of Amtrak in 1971, the railroads have become a plaything of politicians, with routes shaped to fit the pressures applied by key congressmen.[17] Red ink exploded.

It was once inconceivable that the government would own and operate America’s railroads; they were at the foundation of industrialization and so profitable they were a big part of the early Dow Jones Industrial Average. The debacle of the railroads is a stark reminder of what happens when government intervenes in the economy. The power to regulate is the power to control. It may not be the quickest method, but it is probably the surest way to socialism and then to ruin." --FEE Timely Classic : "Train Wreck" 1999

Socialism = applied covetousness

"'Thou shalt not covet' means that it is sinful even to contemplate the seizure of another man's goods -- which is something which Socialists, whether Christian or otherwise, have never managed to explain away."

-- John Chamberlain, The Roots of Capitalism [1965]

Et tu, Keyes?

An article from "Common Sense" host Paul Jacobs found here

http://www.limitedgov.org/sites/lg/common_sense.aspx?Title=ET TU, KEYES?

left me disappointed with Alan Keyes, with whom I am generally in agreement. Keyes said opinion polls are "damaging to our political system, and they should not be allowed when it comes to the actual time frame in which people are making up their minds."

In other words, when people are forming their opinions, they should not have access to the opinions of others lest other's opinions influence their own. But isn't protecting people's freedom to share political opinions -- their opinions about government -- without repercussion just what the First Amendment was primarily about? And Keyes wants to limit this, presumably with government prohibitions and accompanying repercussions (use of force) against violators (violators being those who share political opinions).

What a disappointment. And that's my political opinion on the matter.

Wise and frugal government

A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement.

- Thomas Jefferson

Principles not Party

"Are we a political people? Yes, very political indeed. But what party do you belong to or would you vote for? I will tell you whom we will vote for: we will vote for the man who will sustain the principles of civil and religious liberty, the man who knows the most and who has the best heart and brain for a statesman; and we do not care a farthing whether he is a whig, a democrat, a barnburner, a republican, a new light or anything else. These are our politics."

- Brigham Young , Journal of Discourses 13:149