Amtrak Funding - Proposed Omnibus Bill FY18

NRGeep wrote:Tax payer subsidized airports, highways, many bus services etc, etc are not required to make a profit. Why Amtrak?

Because Amtrak isn't subsidized by dedicated taxes like others modes of transportation are......
Let's review the 2017 USDOT budget in a broad overview....
https://www.transportation.gov/sites/do ... 111717.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Net Revenues $66,077,164,000
A. Non-Exchange revenues $56,871,484
(a)Highway Trust Fund collected $42,559,742,000 in dedicated taxes
(b)FAA collected $15,362,658,000 in dedicated taxes
B. Appropriations $9,582,624,000
C. Transfers-in/(out) Without Reimbursement $141,863,000
D. Donations/Forfeitures of Cash/Cash Equivalents $775,000
E. Other Adjustments (-$867,000)

Net Costs $79,599,100,000
A. Surface Transportation costs $63,066,926,000
(a)Federal-Aid Highway Program $44,478,162,000
(b)Mass Transit Program $12,491,741,000
(c)Other Surface Transportation Programs $6,097,023,000
B. Air Transportation costs $16,148,627,000
C. Maritime Transportation $450,828,000
D. Cross-Cutting Costs $434,515,000

Air and highways basically paid for themselves, coming just a little bit short.
Mass Transit, which is mostly funded by the HTF, doesn't. FYI, Neither does Maritime and Railroad programs, which also contribute to the HTF. While private enterprise pay fuel and excise taxes into the HTF, public transit agencies don't.

I'll admit I'd limited the finances to Federal outlays and budgets; and that local governments and agencies raise local money to fund their share of their transportation programs in various ways. But this thread is specifically about Amtrak in particular, which is apart of a Federal agency.

In Palm Beach County, we levied a 1/2 cent sales tax increase just to pay for maintenance on our roads. So I disagree on the roads paying for themselves argument (except maybe some toll roads).

chrsjrcj wrote:In Palm Beach County, we levied a 1/2 cent sales tax increase just to pay for maintenance on our roads. So I disagree on the roads paying for themselves argument (except maybe some toll roads).

Roads financed by State and Local governments don't get Federal funds. Highways get Federal funds, and the Federal Highway Trust Fund collected $42.5 Billion, with USDOT spending $44.5 Billion on highways. So the Highway Trust Fund revenues could have paid 95.5% of what the USDOT spent on highways that year.
But some will say it really didn't because mass transit funding of $12.5 Billion was also paid from the HTF. So some could say only $32 Billion, 76%, spent on highways came from the Highway Trust Fund. Either way, $12.5 Billion of the HTF was spent on mass transit without mass transit providing any tax revenues. One could just as easily say 100% of federal mass transit funding came at the expense of highway funding, or was subsidized from the general federal budget mostly using income taxes instead. We could argue that point forever and never come to an agreement, depending upon your point of view.
Amtrak is a Federal financed agency or entity, let's keep local roads costs and finances out of the discussion. Whereas States will subsidize Amtrak losses on regional trains (less than 750 miles in length), the Federal government subsidizes all long distance trains and NEC trains (running between Boston and D.C.) There are local transit agencies financing and subsidizing mass transit as well as roads.

The main point I was trying to point out is that " publicly" operated mass transit and railroads pay zero taxes into the HTF, highway and airway users pay well over 90% with some sort of dedicated taxes in revenues of what is allocated to spend every year on highways and airways.

electricron wrote: Roads financed by State and Local governments don't get Federal funds. Highways get Federal funds, and the Federal Highway Trust Fund collected $42.5 Billion, with USDOT spending $44.5 Billion on highways. So the Highway Trust Fund revenues could have paid 95.5% of what the USDOT spent on highways that year.
....

Amtrak is a Federal financed agency or entity, let's keep local roads costs and finances out of the discussion.

I appreciate your calculations but I think the role of local roads is an important part of this discussion. By collecting federal highway user fees at the pump, the HTF is generating the majority of its revenue from VMT on city and state roads -- roads that the HTF does not pay to maintain. If the HTF had a fair funding mechanism it would either only collect user fees for VMT on federal highways or the HTF would contribute to the maintenance of the city streets and state highways. If the HTF only received user fees for VMT from roads that it paid to maintain then the federal highway system would operate at a much larger deficit than 4.5%. It looks to me like city and state DOTs are heavily subsidizing federal highways -- this redistribution is not showing up in the HTF accounting, but we can see evidence of it in places like Palm Beach County tax increases.