Well isn’t this something?!?!?
House Republicans voted Wednesday to chop about a fifth of Amtrak’s budget, less than a day after a deadly train crash that Democrats pointed to as a prime example of the dangers of shortchanging the nation’s transportation needs.
They also rebuffed Democrats’ attempts to provide money for an advanced speed-control technology that federal investigators later said would have prevented the crash.
“Based on what we know right now, we feel that had such a system been installed in this section of track, this accident would not have occurred,” National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt told reporters Wednesday evening. Sumwalt, who is leading the crash probe, spoke hours after the House Appropriations Committee voted down a Democratic amendment that would have offered $825 million for the technology known as positive train control.
In a related story, Republican House Speaker John Boehner apparently thinks it’s stupid to blame federal funding of Amtrak for the fatal train crash.
Speaker John Boehner’s said Thursday it’s “stupid” to blame federal funding of Amtrak for the deadly train crash in Philadelphia.
Democrats responded, in so many words, that the comment itself was dumb. And at least one safety expert said that federal investment in train-speed technology would have prevented the accident that killed eight people.
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“Are you really going to ask such a stupid question?” Boehner said at a news conference, cutting off a reporter as she asked about criticism that railways aren’t adequately funded.
What’s really stupid about Speaker Boehner’s comment is that it’s absolutely true that the installation of positive train control technology could have prevented the crash, and an increase in funding for Amtrak could have sped up the installation of positive train control technology, which is mandated to be completed on all railroads by the end of 2015.
You spelled Amtrak wrong several times.