Senate GOP killed $2 billion for Amtrak repairs in 2011

[KamaAina]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/13/1384577/-Senate-GOP-killed-2-billion-for-Amtrak-repairs-in-2011

While investigators are working to understand the causes of the deadly Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia, the Republicans' best and brightest are adding insult to injury. On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee voted along party lines to slash $260 million from Amtrak funding. Meanwhile, David Frum, the man who brought you "the Axis of Evil," brought some evil of his own to Twitter:...

Leave aside for the moment that over 40 percent of President Obama's 2009 stimulus program was delivered in the form of tax cuts. In 2011, every Senate Republican voted to filibuster Obama's American Jobs Act and its $2 billion in repair and renovation money for Amtrak.

As you may recall, that $447 billion package was designed to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, especially in the lagging construction and public sectors, through large scale investment in infrastructure. In section subtitled "Immediate Transportation Infrastructure Investments," the American Jobs Act featured this nugget for the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, also known as Amtrak:...

But on October 11, 2011, every Republican Senator said no in a filibuster that was joined by Democrats Jon Tester (D-MT) and Ben Nelson (D-NE). And what did these 49 Senators succeed in blocking?

[think]

1. If only Amtrak was part of the military.....

[KamaAina]

2. You laugh and you scoff, but

that was part of the justification for the interstate highway system: the ability to move military materiel across the country. This explains, among other things, whey there are interstate highways in Hawai'i.