How exactly is at apples to oranges to compare the cost of one transport network to the cost of another transport network?
And the point, since you geniuses seem to have missed it, is that some things should be subsidized because its in the public good. Somehow everyone thinks thats A OK when it comes to roads, but as soon as we talk about the evil public transportation network, well it should be self sufficient.
As if somehow its ok to subsidize the middle and upper classes, but subsidizing the poor is a terrible, terrible thing.
Nik, I highly suggest you read the constitution and then point out to me the clause that applies too public good.
Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution, which states:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States"
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare,
and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare,
they may take the care of religion into their own hands;
they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish
and pay them out of their public treasury;
they may take into their own hands the education of children,
establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union;
they may assume the provision of the poor;
they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads;
in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation
down to the most minute object of police,
would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power
of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for,
it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature
of the limited Government established by the people of America."
James Madison
Is that the public good your talking about? While it's true that roads and rail are part of interstate commerce and Govt. has every right under the constitution to regulate it. Your assertion that Amtrak is somehow by definition entitled to this money because it serves a public good fails on many points. Let's assume for the moment that "public good" as seen by the new progressives as the goal of a Govt. in the same mold of Lenin, then perhaps you might explain what good it serves to take money from the collective and throw it into a a venture that constantly loses money for the collective when that money could be better used elsewhere to server the collective? The facts are Amtrak serves as just one example of Govt. mismanagement , and I am not an advocate that Govt. does not have a place, however Govts. power is limited by the bounds of the constitution. You assume by my posting that I am an advocate for non -intervention by the Govt. in transportation matters, you assume incorrectly. What I advocate is that Govt. has the power through the commerce clause to regulate these roads and rail through the commerce clause but it's a big leap of faith to say that implies Govt. ownership.
South Dakota V. Dole
The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision authored by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, ruled that Congress had engaged in a valid exercise of its power under the Taxing and Spending Clause, and did not violate the 21st Amendment. Rehnquist said that Congress's conditional spending is subject to four restrictions:
The condition must promote "the general welfare;"
The condition must be unambiguous;
The condition should relate "to the federal interest in particular national projects or programs;" and
Other constitutional provisions may provide an independent bar to the conditional grant of federal funds.
The first three restrictions, Rehnquist noted, are uncontested.
This leaves the fourth restriction. The Tenth Amendment bars federal regulation of the States, and it has been suggested that the Twenty-First Amendment might prohibit federal regulation of the drinking age. Nevertheless, the Congressional condition of highway funds is merely a "pressure" on the State to comply, not a "compulsion" to do so, because the State's failure to meet the condition deprives it of only 5%
