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