Congressional Budget for the United States Government for the Fiscal Year 2006
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 2006 -- (Senate - March 15, 2005)
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Mr. SCHUMER. I appreciate my good friend from Georgia recognizing me.
I am here to rise in strong support of the Byrd amendment. First, I thank our leader and our colleague and friend, Senator ROBERT C. BYRD, for offering this amendment. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this amendment. It is one of the most vital amendments we will vote on this week in terms of the budget. Much has already been said, but I just want to add my voice to the importance of Amtrak.
If you live in the Northeast, if you live in New York State, you know how important Amtrak is, not only the train that goes from Boston to New York and then to Washington, but the line that goes from New York City to Albany and then to Montreal.
For the capital region of Albany, for over a million people, Amtrak is the No. 1 way to get to nearby cities, the route that goes from Buffalo across to Albany and then to Boston. All of them are well traveled and well used and meet any national test in terms of transportation. In New York, 10 million New Yorkers use Amtrak, and large numbers of people depend on Amtrak.
This affects all of America. I know it has been said before, but let me say it again. If we were to close Amtrak, and in our most densely populated area, the Northeast corridor, people used planes only, you would have congestion in New York City, in Boston, in Philadelphia, in Washington. It you lived, say, in Chicago or Los Angeles, or Albuquerque, you may say: What do I care? The reason is, once the traffic backs up on the east coast corridor, it then backs up to Cleveland, to Detroit, to Chicago, and down to Dallas, and all the way to California. We would choke not only our rail system, which is probably the intention of the amendment, but we would choke our entire transportation system. The roads, densely populated by trucks and cars already, would become more crowded. That means traffic jams would increase. That means pollution would increase. That means time per worker to get something done, efficiency and productivity, would go down. As I mentioned, our air service would become a total mess. So for the relatively small subsidy that Amtrak gets, it keeps our transportation system in the whole country humming.
Europe does not have the kind of delays--
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. Thank you, Mr. President.
Western Europe is about the only place as crowded and uses as much transportation as the United States. But the delays at the airports are so much lower. Why? Because they have a well, efficient, and subsidized system of rail. You go from London to Paris, you take the Chunnel train. You go from Paris to Lyon or Frankfurt, you take the Train a Grand Vitesse. It is just ridiculous that we are thinking of cutting it here.
Now, if you say we are against subsidies, well, agricultural subsidies are a similar subsidy. And there is sort of a balance. Believe me, my State, particularly now with the new laws we passed for dairy and apples, benefits from agriculture subsidies. They are cut 5 percent. Amtrak is eliminated. Why is that? If you are against subsidies, you are against subsidies.
I would urge the President and the people supporting this budget: OK, cut Amtrak 5 percent like you cut agriculture. Maybe together we can fight to restore even that 5 percent. But it is not a question of subsidy.
Then we get boxed in. People talk about: Well, what about the trains that are hardly used that go through large swatches of the country where they are not used? Well, the bottom line is, people from areas where Amtrak is heavily used depend on the votes of some of those folks. If we could get a guarantee from the White House and from this body that only in the areas where Amtrak is highly used we would continue to support it, and eliminate the rest, that is something to consider. But they do a ``beggar thy neighbor'' argument. They say: Cut the subsidies out West or in the South, and then we will not support Amtrak anywhere. And that gives us virtually no support. It is untenable and it is unfair.
One other issue. It affects my city, and that is the issue of terrorism. After 9/11 our airspace was shut down, but New York was not closed to the rest of the country because we had Amtrak. God forbid another terrorist incident occurs. Let's say, God forbid, somebody uses MANPAD shoulder-held missiles and shoots down planes in 20 places in the United States of America. Again, God forbid, if we did not have a rail system, this country would come to a screeching halt. So after 9/11, the rationale is even more important than it was before 9/11. And the whole idea we will send Amtrak into bankruptcy and then we will fix it will cause chaos-- chaos in New York, chaos in the Northeast, chaos in America.
This is no way to run a country. This is no way to run a transportation system. No business man or woman who knows how to get things done would make this kind of proposal. I think what we find with this proposal is what we find with a lot of things these days: a small band of ideologues who really do not look at practicalities. Ideologues of the right, ideologues of the left--they have all their genius given to them directly from the heavens, and they do not look at practicalities.
These ideologues say: Amtrak, subsidy, bad. And then, because Amtrak has less political support, people go along. Are we cutting the subsidy for roads? Are we cutting the subsidy for airports? The same ideologues say those are bad, too. But we are in the anomalous position where we are caught between the ideologues on the one hand and the practicality of political support on the other, and we get stuck. There is no consistency, no practicality, no understanding of the need of a modern nation.
So I hope we will vote for Senator Byrd's amendment. Will it take Amtrak to great new heights? No. Will it allow it to continue and grow? Yes. With the changes made by Mr. Gunn, who everybody understands is an excellent manager and who doesn't like to waste a nickel, we can make Amtrak better.
I hope that on this amendment, instead of the knee-jerk reaction to vote down all amendments, which we have seen a lot, people will look at the amendment and at the consequences of doing what is in the budget, and I hope we will support the Byrd amendment.
I yield the floor.
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