Political Quotes

“Let me just say, I misspoke earlier; I left off three zeros. This amendment would save $1.2 billion, not $1.2 million. It's easy to mess that up these days, given all the zeros we're talking about. The U.S. Department of Transportation calculates that the average Amtrak passenger receives a $210 Federal subsidy for their ticket. Larger subsidies obviously go to underperforming routes and those traveling in first class or sleeper cars. In fact, the Federal Government says that it could actually save money by buying a plane ticket for every passenger on some of the worst performing routes, like that from Orlando to L.A., for example. This has been going on for a long, long time, and we're always told that Amtrak will be self-sufficient just around the corner, or that something else will happen; and it simply never does. It's kind of the transportation version of corn ethanol subsidies. So, I don't want to anger another group here. But anyway, it just seems to never, never end; and we keep subsidizing on and on. It might be one thing if we were running a big surplus to do this. We're not: 42 or 41 cents on every dollar we spend this year will be borrowed from future generations, from the Chinese, from other bond holders. When we're spending, when we're borrowing 42 cents on every dollar, I think it behooves us to look for areas where we can save; and this is a modest area here, to cut some, just a small portion, of the subsidy that we currently provide.”