Amtrak And DOGE

electricron wrote: ↑Sun Dec 08, 2024 9:09 pm
So, over the last 13 years, a little over $20 Billion per year has been granted from the General Fund into the Highway Trust Fund. That includes all the funds from various Recovery Acts to fix the economy. Until 2008, the Highway Trust Fund funded all Federal Highway commitment since 1956.

Thanks for the history on this. It has been fuzzy to me.

So 13 years of subsidies are fine, but 50 years is too much? What is the break point between OK and not cool?

RandallW wrote: ↑Sun Dec 08, 2024 7:50 pm Hmm...an odd claim that the Federal government has an obligation to maintain roads that carry mail, but that states are really responsible for them? You can't have it both ways.

The Federal Highway Trustfund, spending Federal money is what's loosing money, not state DOTs.

Under the Constitution, Congress has no obligation to establish post roads, but has the power to do so should it choose to do so (power is not obligation). I would expect self proclaimed conservatives to know the difference given that they seem to be streniously objecting to Congress excerssing it's specifically enumerated power over interstate commerce.

I'm not the one arguing that roads lose money thus will be shut down by DOGE... but let's go down that rabbit hole if you want....

Congress was given power in 1792, and chose to exercise it. Congress required a national fuel tax to fund the Highway Trust Fund, and doles out those funds to the states.

Could the Highway Trust Fund be eliminated? Could Congress abdicate the responsibility?

Absolutely.

And then, those in Congress who abdicated their responsibility would likely be promptly voted out of office by their constituents within 2-4 years, and the Trust Fund would be resurrected or something else created to replace it.

If Congress were to eliminate or fully privatize Amtrak, nobody's going to revolt to that degree. Maybe a few ugly letters to the Editor or a few votes withheld, but as already noted, when less than 1% of the traveling public uses Amtrak, that's not going to have a material impact at the ballot box.

The timeline of the Trust Fund is indeed interesting. It seems that as cars have been mandated to become more fuel efficient, the Trust Fund's value hasn't been able to cover costs. Likewise, EV's aren't paying anything into the system, yet that's also being promoted by the government.

I'm a strong proponent of user fees, so if increasing the fuel tax to make highways be self-funded again, I couldn't very well argue against it. But the only fair way to fund them would be a miles traveled tax, which is the only method by which EV's can be taxed equally with ICE powered vehicles.

The highway trust fund is one thing the Trump administration and Congress will have to address in the next year or so. The authorizations are going to be up and the highway trust fund is getting close to insolvency again - it’s going to need a general fund transfer at some point before the end of 2026 if memory serves.

Bob Roberts wrote: ↑Sun Dec 08, 2024 9:17 pm Thanks for the history on this. It has been fuzzy to me.
So 13 years of subsidies are fine, but 50 years is too much? What is the break point between OK and not cool?

I edited by earlier post. To answer your specific question using just Federal gas taxes,
$40 Billion per year from gas taxes + $20 Billion per year from subsidies from the general fund = $60 Billion per year.
Therefore, the 18 cents per gallon tax rate would have to be increased 50% to 27 cents per gallon. Additionally, diesel tax would have to be increased 50% as well.

That's with existing spending. Who know what will be needed for all the HSR projects everyone desires?
It would be a whole lot easier if the Feds could tax trains somehow. But they don't.

electricron wrote: ↑Sun Dec 08, 2024 9:31 pm Therefore, the 18 cents per gallon tax rate would have to be increased 50% to 27 cents per gallon. Additionally, diesel tax would have to be increased 50% as well.

$0.10 per gallon isn't going to hurt the average driver.

But how are you going to tax the growing number EV's using the same roads and ironically, are usually heavier in than the non-EV versions of the same vehicle.

The gas powered F-150 ranges between 4400 and 6900 lbs with a full tank of gas but no payload.
The EV powered F-150 ranges from 6000 to 6900 lbs with no payload, a pretty significant weight difference, which equates to greater wear and tear on roads...

Anyone, suggestions on how to assess Highway Use Tax on those parties who "charge 'er up" away from public charging stations, such as at home?

I'm not sure if its presently done, but should be; $X per kwh assessed at a home charging outlet. But I'm quick to note, there are many a way such a tax could be beat.

As I've noted around here, my one experience with an EV in this life was with a rented Tesla Model Y during Nov '22. Hertz just said "just bring 'er back; we will take care of it". There was no "refueling charge" appearing on my closed Rental Agreement.

I own an EV. I exclusively charge it at home, unless I drive farther than I can go on a full charge. My understanding is that states are contemplating replacing the gasoline tax with a tax on miles traveled, assessed when one renews one's registration. The other way to go, of course, is tolls.

charlesriverbranch wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2024 9:47 am I own an EV. I exclusively charge it at home, unless I drive farther than I can go on a full charge. My understanding is that states are contemplating replacing the gasoline tax with a tax on miles traveled, assessed when one renews one's registration. The other way to go, of course, is tolls.

I suppose if the feds also adopted a mileage based tax the state DMVs could be responsible for collecting that along with the state and local level taxes at registration renewal time as well.

Annual reporting for VMT is probably the fairest way to manage it, especially in places where there is mandated emissions testing or safety inspections. EV's have enough built-in technology they could probably self-report weekly or monthly to soften the blow, or as mentioned, pick up the charging activity and track by kilowatt hour.

Bob Roberts wrote: ↑Sun Dec 08, 2024 6:59 pm The place where this fiscal argument looses me is that federal highways have seen 30 years of losses and no one seems to bat an eyelash about that. What exactly is different about Amtrak's much smaller losses?

Should we expect DODGE to shut down federal highways due to the subsidies they receive? Doing so would probably recover $50-100 billion per year to the treasury -- but this would undoubtedly reduce GDP.

We were taught in business classes that public goods (IE gov't funded operations) are usually measured by throughput rather than by profit.

IE Public schools lose money, but they are graded on how many students are graduated or pass standardized testing. Those that don't pass enough students are closed or overhauled.

With regard to roads, the throughput is far higher than railroad passengers. When you have roads that cannot support any more passengers or gross congestions, the train makes sense (IE NEC, MNCR, Metra).

When it comes to Amtrak, that's a hard justification for reasons I've been pretty vocal about. IT's less than 1pct of interstate travel on routes that go across the vast empty areas, yet it doesn't provide essential transport as it doesn't cover even more vast and empty areas. This is why I advcoate so much for day trains and regional operations so as to have a throughput (passenger miles?) that is measurably significant and coherent to transport and environmental policy.

How do we justify Amtrak when the Sunset or Builder have no hope of ever making a real difference in traffic, pollution, or mobility?

Well if we are committing to derailing the thread, what you folks are arguing about has been a problem for years. The big trouble is how do you verify VMT? Toll transponders, Odometer readings? Then how do you guard against falsification? Americans as it stands already seem to have a hard time with any national database tracking system. Fuel tax as it is currently used is both a proxy for VMT and intended to decrease fossil fuel usage with a financial incentive to get more fuel efficient vehicle and hopefully reduce carbon emissions.

At least regarding EV weight this has been one of my core problem with people thinking EV's will be a magic solution. Granted, road damage is more a function of 18 wheelers and overloaded box trucks combined with the absurd amount of road salt the Northeastern states dump on the roads for every snowflake. This is one of the other reasons why I'm extra grumpy about the class 1's abandoning less than carload freight, the roads around industrial areas are all chewed up from the truck traffic that took over the industrial spurs

Back to DOGE or whatever they want to call it, This sounds like we are recycling the Amtrak (and fuel tax) arguments from the mid 80s during the Reagan's proposed cuts. https://www.chicagotribune.com/1985/05/ ... no-fiscal/

All cars have odometers , so there is no need to get complicated.
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/vehicles/road- ... -vehicles/

ChesterValley wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2024 4:00 pm Well if we are committing to derailing the thread, what you folks are arguing about has been a problem for years. The big trouble is how do you verify VMT? Toll transponders, Odometer readings? Then how do you guard against falsification? Americans as it stands already seem to have a hard time with any national database tracking system. Fuel tax as it is currently used is both a proxy for VMT and intended to decrease fossil fuel usage with a financial incentive to get more fuel efficient vehicle and hopefully reduce carbon emissions.

At least regarding EV weight this has been one of my core problem with people thinking EV's will be a magic solution. Granted, road damage is more a function of 18 wheelers and overloaded box trucks combined with the absurd amount of road salt the Northeastern states dump on the roads for every snowflake. This is one of the other reasons why I'm extra grumpy about the class 1's abandoning less than carload freight, the roads around industrial areas are all chewed up from the truck traffic that took over the industrial spurs

Back to DOGE or whatever they want to call it, This sounds like we are recycling the Amtrak (and fuel tax) arguments from the mid 80s during the Reagan's proposed cuts. https://www.chicagotribune.com/1985/05/ ... no-fiscal/

Vehicles under 3000 kg ( 10000 or so pounds?) do very little damage to roads .A single heavy truck will do more damage than 1000 cars , depending on pavement type , and underpavement base strenght. What cars do need is more lane capacity, so a small increase in weight is not really a factor.

The science is out there. An automobile or truck may run on a test track and be measured for wear to the road. Set bands of wear per thousand miles of travel. If a State accepts federal highway dollars, they get to tax per mile in each band.

If I can think it through, some staffer on the House/Senate Transportation Committees can too.

Road wear is a function of each tire's weight on the road to the 4th power. So, a mini car that weighs 2000 pounds places 500 pounds pm each tire. An eighty-thousand-pound 18-wheeler averages 4444# per tire. If we use 4000 #s per tire the weight it is 8 times that of the mini car. So, 8 x 8 x 8 x8 means the 18-wheeler does 4096 the amount of damage the mini car does.

Then a 4000 # EV at 1000#s per tire means it is twice the weight oof the mini car or 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16 times the wear of the mini car. Then there also has been complaints the Telsa's tires are wearing out rather quickly.

It would appear from these figures that autos are subduing trucks for highway access. However, travel connivence for road access does count somewhat.

https://www.bing.com/search?pglt=297&q= ... A1&PC=HCTS