What ever happened to companies investing in their own services? If a company needs to ask for government handouts, they should be considered a public service and absorbed into the government.
Amtrak should NOT be a for profit company any more…
While I agree with you, Amtrak does get government funding. It used to be a heck of a lot of money but we live in the era of neoliberalism that Reagan instantiated. Funding has been cut and cut and cut. Amtrak is on life support and should be nationalized.
But in this political climate, it ain’t happening. I’ll take what I can get. It is way better to publicly fund this over say: an NFL stadium, etc.
Amtrak is one of the few quasi-public for-profits that needs more funding.
One big issue is that the corporations that effectively own the tracks are supposed to give passenger trains priority over freight, but often do not, causing delays. More funding could potentially help enforce that rule.
We subsidize many major corporations and/or their infrastructure. Airports, stadiums, agriculture, telecoms, oil, … the list goes on.
I’m of the opinion that if anyone in the industry is making millions from it, they don’t deserve subsidies.
That’s kinda where I was going with it .
