A Stitch in Haste

A decades-long failed experiment in American socialism may be one step closer to termination:

The Amtrak board has approved an essential step in the Bush administration plan to break up the railroad, voting to carve out the Northeast Corridor, the tracks between Boston and Washington, as a separate division.

The board, made up entirely of Mr. Bush's appointees, voted in a meeting on Sept. 22 to create a new subsidiary to own and manage the corridor, which includes nearly all the track that Amtrak owns.
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The plan, which would require action by Congress, is to transfer the corridor to a consortium including the federal government and the governments of the states in the region that would share the costs to maintain it.

The plan is, predictably, being opposed by everybody (i.e., Amtrak's labor unions and some ridiculous "National Association of Railroad Passengers") who believes that those who do not use Amtrak should subsidize those who do.

Recall why the Northeast Corridor is unlike Amtrak's other lines: people actually use it. It can therefore be operated profitably. It can therefore be operated privately. Separating it from Amtrak's other operations would therefore show Congress, and taxpayers, just how worthless the rest of Amtrak truly is.

Excluding the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak loses money because people don't use it. If people don't use it, then how can its apologists claim with a straight face that it is a "critical" part of our transportation infrastructure? Since when is something that people don't use "critical"?

And remember, we're talking about an annual subsidy in excess of $1 billion. With calls for even more money from pork-loving politicians growing ever more shrill with each passing year.

Amtrak is the most brazen example of the socialist illogic that the less people want something, the more the government should provide it. Congress should approve the segmentation of Amtrak's operations and follow through with a complete breakup and eventual dismantling of this perpetual embarrassment.