A Stitch in Haste

A House subcommittee has approved a roughly 50% cut in Amtrak's taxpayer subsidy, focusing on eliminating unprofitable (i.e., unused) long-distance routes:

The cuts, which would require House and Senate approval, would not apply to most Amtrak service in the Northeast corridor and shorter corridor routes in the Midwest and California.

The subcommittee chairman, Rep. Joe Knollenberg, said those routes account for 80 percent of Amtrak's ridership. He said some money-losing routes, such as the Sunset Limited between Los Angeles and Orlando, require federal subsidies of more than $400 per passenger.

The proposal would cap the subsidy to no more than $30 per passenger per ride. That's $30 too much, but certainly better than $400.

The pork barrel response?

The plan drew protests from subcommittee Democrats who said it would unfairly punish rural residents. "There will be 31 states who lose all passenger rail service completely," said Rep. John Olver, D-Mass.

Knollenberg said the measure would not mandate the closure of any routes and that state and local governments could decide to subsidize them.

It seems to me that the protestations regarding Amtrak funding generally, and closing individual routes specifically, are reminiscent of the military base closing conundrum after the Cold War ended. Most everyone wanted reductions, yet the Politics of Pull made it almost impossible, as each base had its own defender in Washington.

The solution was the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. Congress, admitting its own incompetence, shackled itself and left the decisions to a nonpartisan group of experts to make the decisions almost completely outside the political arena. The process has been relatively successful and continues to this day.

So why not try the same thing with Amtrak? Appoint an independent commission (i.e., independent not only from Congress but from the self-interested and therefore biased Amtrak bureaucrats, not to mention any labor union contamination) to objectively review the traffic statistics and budgets of the assorted routes and decide which routes should be closed and which can perhaps be reworked to operate at little or — dare we hope? — no taxpayer subsidy.

One person I would try to draft to head such a commission would be retired General Electric Chairman Jack Welch — he knows something about turning around large enterprises. In fact I seem to recall that GE is in the locomotive manufacturing business.

To review: Amtrak loses money on certain routes because nobody uses them. Its profitable routes are profitable precisely because there is demand for them. Any private business would simply reduce the unwanted routes, emphasize the desired ones and, um, make money.

But of course Amtrak is not a business, it's a warm fuzzy feeling induced by taxpayer handouts.

An independent "route closing commission" could reduce or even eliminate the obscene Amtrak subsidy once and for all. The Administration should immediately call for the creation of one.