The Bush administration has threatened to
derail the nation’s largest passenger train corporation
by eliminating all federal subsidies to Amtrak.
The proposal has created a firestorm in
Illinois as the state’s political leaders say such a move
would cause mass layoffs and isolate many rural communities that
depend on train travel.
Bush proposed the Amtrak cuts on Monday as
part of his $2.57 trillion federal- budget proposal, which seeks to
boost defense and homeland-security spending but slashes scores of
domestic programs.
The president’s budget calls for cuts to
farm subsidies, education and environmental programs, and
health-care and housing payments for the poor.
Supporters say the proposed cuts to more than
150 federally funded programs are critical to reducing a
record-high federal deficit that is projected to reach $427 billion
this year.
Critics, meanwhile, have called Bush’s
proposal misleading since it does not include several major
initiatives, such as costs for revamping Social Security and
funding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Despite proposed funding increases for
airlines, the federal allocation for Amtrak has been left entirely
blank in the budget for fiscal year 2006, which begins Oct. 1.
Amtrak president David Gunn called the
proposal “irresponsible and a surprising
disappointment.”
“In a word, they have no plan for Amtrak
other than bankruptcy,” Gunn said in a statement released to
Amtrak employees.
The federal government has pressured Amtrak to
become financially self-sufficient since its inception in 1970, but the
company has never made a profit, says Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari.
The Bush administration has pushed to cut
Amtrak funding every year since 2001, and Congress, in turn, has
restored much of the funding. For the current fiscal year, which
ends Sept. 30, Amtrak requested $1.8 billion, the administration
proposed $900 million, and Congress appropriated $1.2 billion.
This budget proposal, however, represents the
administration’s most radical yet. Amtrak’s operating
subsidy, which accounts for nearly 40 percent of its annual
operating budget, would disappear.
The president’s budget would also
eliminate $250 million for railroad rehabilitation and $20 million
for the development of high-speed rail.
In Illinois, the federal government has
already contributed some $50 million toward the construction of
high-speed rail along the route from Chicago to St. Louis, which
runs through Springfield.
The project, which has received $80 million in
state funding, would enable Amtrak’s daily trains to travel
at speeds as high as 110 mph, up from the current 79 mph, and cut
an hour-and-a-half off travel time.
On Tuesday, Gov. Rod Blagojevich sent Bush a
letter opposing the Amtrak cuts. It was cosigned by 20 Illinois congressmen and U.S.
Senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama.
“If the Congress passes your budget as
proposed, it will severely set back bringing high-speed rail to the
Midwest, if not kill the initiative altogether,” Blagojevich
wrote.
Blagojevich also noted that wiping out federal
subsidies to Amtrak could result in 2,000 lost jobs and leave many
college students stranded in parts of the state where the options
for commuting are few.
“In many of our downstate
communities,” the governor wrote, “passenger rail is
the only public transportation available.”
The Amtrak cuts could also have a direct impact on new development planned for Springfield.
Last month, Springfield Mass Transit District
won a $70,000 state grant to study the feasibility of creating a
transportation hub in the capital city.
Jim Moll, project manager for Hanson
Professional Services, which has produced similar studies in the
past, says the aim is to create an intermodal center for SMTD and
Greyhound buses, taxis, local shuttles, and Amtrak trains.
“If Amtrak doesn’t run,”
says Moll, “it would change a lot about our need for an
intermodal site.”
This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2005.
