House Republicans offered a master class in the Republican agenda Tuesday,
cutting Amtrak funding while showing that their safety priorities are on the side of appearances, not actual safety:
The GOP-controlled House passed legislation Tuesday to cut Amtrak's budget by $242 million, though lawmakers added new funding for video cameras inside locomotive cabs to record engineers and help investigators get to the bottom of crashes such as last month's deadly derailment in Philadelphia.
Amtrak announced last month it is going to install the cameras after years of delays. The transportation and housing measure approved by a narrow 216-210 vote contains $9 million approved last week to fund the inward-facing camera initiative in the budget year starting in October.
Yes, let's fund cameras to investigate accidents after they happen (and by the way, the National Transportation Safety Board says the engineer in last month's derailment was
not using his phone), but defend the decision to have
refused added funding for positive train control, which could actually have prevented that accident. It's the Republican way!
U.S. funding for rail systems lags far behind that of peer nations, and we pay for it not just in fewer and slower trains but in a worse safety record. When House Speaker John Boehner claimed it was "stupid" to suggest that underfunding played a role in the Philadelphia derailment, he was himself being awfully stupid to think we'd believe him. But worse, he was actively trying to mislead on the direct results of his party's refusal to invest in Amtrak and its broader refusal to invest in America.