Amtrak - Another Example of the Federal Government's 100% Failure Rate

Why do we tolerate different and lower standards for government-funded enterprises than we do for the private sector?

Amtrak is "a colossal waste of taxpayer money and the very embodiment of what is wrong with state intervention in the free market economy."

1. It accounts "for well less than 1% of intercity passenger miles." 
2. Everyone of its 44 routes has bus and air travel alternatives, not to mention automobile travel.
3. "The cumulative taxpayer subsidy since 1972 totals more than $75 billion in dollars of today’s purchasing power." 
4. "During the span of nearly a half century, Amtrak has operated upwards of 40 routes that have never, ever made even an 'operating profit'”. 
5. "How in the world does it make sense to operate a lumbering passenger rail system in which the true economic cost of its capital assets alone is 65% to 130% higher than the profitable fares charged by the perfectly adequate and available alternative modes of transportation?"
6. "Amtrak’s fully loaded wage and benefits tab is about $2 billion per year and is spread over 20,000 employees. Needless to say, at $100,000 per employee Amtrak’s costs are not even in the same zip code as its far more efficient for-profit competitors in the airline and bus transit industries".
7. "Its operating costs are 3-4X the ticket price of its air and bus competitors!System revenues cover less than 45% of its all-in economic costs to society." 
5. Cost per Passenger Mile:

• Amtrak - $0.25
• Bus fare - $0.11 
• US airline fare - $0.15

"The solution is not for a bankrupt government in Washington to pour more money down the Amtrak rat hole in the name of 'infrastructure investment', as the big spenders are now braying in the wake of this week’s disaster in Philadelphia. Instead, Amtrak should be put out of its misery once and for all. Otherwise its longstanding hazard to the taxpayers is likely to be compounded by even more public safety disasters like this week’s tragic event."

Hat tip to David Stockman

Econ 101 Lesson Courtesy of the State of North Carolina

The state of North Carolina is projecting a $400 million surplus this year!

So much for the cries from the Left that tax cuts would leave our schools without teachers, our communities without police and fire protection, our children without food, our roads and bridges collapsing, and our universities closed.

Quick Econ 101 Lesson: 

• Tax cuts = more money in the pocket of producers.
• Producers use those dollars to (1) buy stuff, (2) invest, and/or (3) save. 

1. The stuff they buy must be produced by someone. That someone must be employed in order to create the stuff.
2. The dollars that are invested are put to work on something. That something requires the employed to execute and deliver it.
3. The saved dollars are loaned out by the financial institution whereby they are housed. Those loaned dollars spurs investment. See #2. 

Unlike our willfully negligent President and the national Democratic Party, the North Carolina governor and the state legislature decided they preferred a pro-business, pro-job growth agenda.

http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=12025