THUMBS XI: Bush Tries to Derail Amtrak; NYC to Wal-Mart: Drop Dead
by David M. KinchenEditor, Bluefield News Network
Hinton (BNN) — This is the eleventh installment of an occasional series expressing approval or disapproval of recent news events, commentaries, etc. Thumbs Up for approval; Thumbs Down for disapproval. I welcome contributions, which will be credited in the item. Contact me at davidkinchen@hotmail.com.
THUMBS DOWN — Way down! — to the Bush Administration's proposed budget which — by ending the federal subsidy to Amtrak — would virtually guarantee the essential transportation service's bankruptcy. My feelings about Amtrak are well known: I love it! I used Amtrak most recently for my November 2004 trip to New York City. It's the only way I travel to New York, Washington and, except for special occasions, Chicago. In my time on earth, 66 years and counting, I've witnessed the horrible decline in rail passenger service in the U.S., while other major countries have expanded their service. The cynics at the White House would preserve the most profitable segment of Amtrak, the Northeast Corridor, by setting aside $360 million to operate trains there should the rest of the system go under. Amtrak is supported by virtually every official in West Virginia, from Mayor Cleo Mathews of Hinton all the way up to Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), the system's strongest supporter of all. I pray that Byrd will live forever to thwart the plans of people who have limousines, private jets and — yes, Air Force One — at their beck and call.
Byrd points out — as if anything as vital to the country's transportation infrastructure needs pointing out — that Amtrak links rural states like West Virginia, with the rest of the nation. Train travel is a civilized, efficient way of traveling from the center of one place to the heart of another. The system has more than 500 stations in 46 states; it employs 22,000 people — many of them women and minorities or both — and it annually serves 24 million passengers. Countries as small as Israel and as large as India — which has the world's largest passenger train service — rely on trains. We would become worse than a Third World country should we lose our rail passenger service.
In his press release attacking the proposed cuts, Byrd says, "Amtrak carries people between our biggest cities and our smallest communities. Without Amtrak, many regions of rural America would return to isolation. Yet, inexplicably, the president seems prepared to derail Amtrak and force a return to that isolation."
Since Bush took office, Byrd has had to battle Administration efforts to close the passenger rail service. For the current year, because of Byrd's efforts, Congress provided Amtrak with funding totaling $1.2 billion, beating back a proposed 26 percent cut sought by the President that would have resulted in Amtrak's bankruptcy. This year's funding fight may be the toughest yet.
"This is the first time that President Bush has sought to completely eliminate Amtrak funding. Starting from zero is going to make it extremely difficult to adequately fund Amtrak in the Congressional budget and appropriations process," Byrd said.Amtrak provides commuter services in some of the nation's most congested urban corridors while also serving as a critical link between rural and urban areas of the country. We in Hinton, population 2,800, have something that Phoenix, more than 1 million and Columbus, Ohio, almost that, big lack: Dependable Amtrak service to Chicago, Washington, New York and other points.
In a letter to Amtrak employees, the railroad's president, David Gunn, highlighted the challenges posed by the White House plan.
"Obviously, the proposal is irresponsible and a surprising disappointment," Gunn wrote. "It doesn't acknowledge all the hard work [Amtrak has] done over the past two years to run a tighter and better ship."
Critics of Amtrak — invariably people with Town Cars and private jets at hand — say it's subsidized. Of course it's subsidized: Everything is. Homeownership is subsidized by tax breaks allowing homeowners to deduct mortgage interest and property taxes. You can't deduct the interest you pay on credit cards or on your car loan. Farmers are massively subsidized, especially the megabuck industrial "farms" that are quickly replacing family farms. We subsidize the growing of two killers, tobacco and sugar. Gasoline taxes don't pay the full cost of building and maintaining our highways. We're going to pay more for the Asian tsunami victims, including those in countries like Indonesia that hate our guts and will probably steal the money. We're going to bribe Poland with $100 million to update their army. And so on and so on...
Stop the madness in the West Wing! Write and e-mail your representatives and President Bush. I have a message for W: West Virginia helped give you a second term. Is this the way to repay the residents of Hinton, Huntington, Charleston, Beckley, Martinsburg and Wheeling for giving you four more years?
THUMBS DOWN — To New York City for doing everything it can to block the construction of a 132,000-square-foot Wal-Mart in the borough of Queens. A story in the Feb. 10, 2005 New York Times chronicles the efforts on the part of city officials, labor leaders, small business owners and others to keep the Arkansas retailing giant from building the store in Rego Park in 2008.
There are plenty of Wal-Marts in New Jersey, Connecticut and outside the Big Apple's limits on Long Island, but nary a Wal-Mart in the nation's biggest city. I say, let them build it and see if the customers will come. If not, Costco or somebody else can take over the space. Several Queens residents are quoted in the story, saying how much they like the range of merchandise at W-M. The store near the intersection of Queens Boulevard and the Long Island Expressway would cut down on travel time for self-confessed "shopaholic" Sheila Richardson of Corona, Queens, who once a week drives to the W-M in Westbury or Hempstead, on Long Island.
As a libertarian, I'm in favor of letting W-M into a city that is crammed to the rafters with discount stores. The same goes for other big cities: Chicago has allowed one Wal-Mart for the predominantly minority West Side, but has turned down proposals for one on the equally ethnically diverse South Side. I'm willing to bet that faculty members of the University of Chicago would flock to a W-M on the South Side.
Organized labor, which has driven virtually all the manufacturing jobs out of NYC, is vehemently opposed to the store. The folks in Bentonville say the store would create more than 300 jobs in a city that desperately needs them. Workers would get more than $10 an hour, which is better than being unemployed or on welfare.
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Thumbs Archives:
10/16/04 — Part I
11/10/04 — Part II
11/26/04 — Part III
12/15/04 — Part IV
12/24/04 — Part V
12/31/04 — Part VI
01/08/05 — Part VII
01/14/05 — Part VIII
01/21/05 — Part IX
02/04/05 — Part X
02/11/05 — Part XI
02/18/05 — Part XII
02/25/05 — Part XIII
02/28/05 — Part XIV
03/06/05 — Part XV
03/10/05 — Part XVI
03/18/05 — Part XVII
03/26/05 — Part XVIII
03/30/05 — Part XIX
04/09/05 — Part XX