John Mica

If we are subsidizing tickets by $375, I mean, really. How do we get to a point to where the American taxpayer is not taken to the cleaners here.

I think this approach is short-sighted and wrong-headed.

I think we can improve our operations and our losses.

We have congressional staff and I have investigative staff. We corroborate and we try not to interfere or duplicate.

We bring in the inspector general. We task him at looking at where there is waste and inefficiency in this agency.

If you want to come out and try to keep the status quo and keep things going as they are, I think you are undoing yourself...

I have been trying to put a commuter rail line in since December of 1992 in central Florida...

I am a strong supporter, as you know, of passenger rail. I think we should be having four times as much service and twice as much employment, and more routes, et cetera, but they have to make sense.

I certainly look forward to continuing--I hope one day I can go from Memphis to Nashville or Memphis to Little Rock.

I came to Washington on a message from the American people. They want their tax dollars spent wisely.

Let's have an honest debate about the future of rail transportation, passenger rail transportation, in America.

If you don't get smart about this, the train is going to stop, regardless of who owns the gavel.

The average subsidy per ticket is about $51. It's actually $50.97.

Amtrak is a Government-subsidized, taxpayer-subsidized operation. Megabus, on the other hand, is a private sector operation that actually makes a profit and pays taxes.

The worst offender, by far, is Sunset Limited. That is Los Angeles to New Orleans. Every ticket on that route is--was subsidized in 2011, $375.

Amtrak subsidies, whether it is for capital or operation are not manna from heaven, they are actually dollars out of the Federal treasury.

The taxpayers in those States are paying towards Amtrak subsidization of these money-losing activities, and getting no service.

More than $.40 of every dollar that is spent out of the General Fund in the most recent past has been borrowed money.

The average subsidy at that time was $46.33. Again, off the chart in the amount of subsidization by the taxpayers.

Some of them are working in dumps. And some of them are working in conditions that are not conducive to doing a good job or being on the job alert, awake, and all of that.

We are losing a competitive advantage in manufacturing and opportunities for putting people to work and capturing markets.

If you work for me and you had a $330 million or a half-a-billion dollar cost overrun and a 4--I give you a 3- to 4-year delay, your butt would be fired.

I want identifiable people in place, the positions, and what the law provided for.

One of the most important aspects of not passing that legislation was not having a blueprint, a formal blueprint, which the FAA authorization provides.

We wouldn't have had an FAA reauthorization without your help, even though it was very difficult to pass that bill.