Michele Bachmann: “the proposed amendment that I'm bringing before the body today removes $106 million from Amtrak funding, restoring it…”

“the proposed amendment that I'm bringing before the body today removes $106 million from Amtrak funding, restoring it back to the fiscal year 2007 level, and it adds that amount to the Homeless Assistance Grants. Madam Chairman, Amtrak has run a deficit for over $1 billion every year. It is now funded at $1.4 billion for fiscal year 2008 in the Democrats' THUD bill, an increase of $106 million over the fiscal year 2007 levels. It's $600 million over the President's request. Much of this deficit stems from Amtrak's long-distance routes, which carry only 15 percent of Amtrak's passengers, but that creates 80 percent of its cash operating losses. Although Congress has made several attempts at getting Amtrak to reform itself, these attempts have resulted in very little improvement, I'm afraid, and tax dollars are continuing to be wasted on a service that is used by only a very small fraction of our American population. It just seems to me that rather than pouring money into this colossally losing investment, we should stop pouring good money after bad, and Congress ought to be funding programs that are proven to help people that are in need and deliver results. We need to help poor people. We shouldn't help poor programs. I think we should be saying no, Madam Chairman, to poor programs because we should not be saying no to poor, homeless people just to continue to prop up a bloated government bureaucracy.”