House Speaker John Boehner fired back at a reporter Thursday who dared to ask him about the House committee vote Wednesday to cut Amtrak funding.
"Are you really going to ask such a stupid question?"
Well, yes. People are just a tad concerned about Tuesday night's crash that has now
claimed the lives of eight people. But Boehner apparently isn't.
"It's hard for me to imagine that people take on the bait on some of the nonsense that gets spewed around here," he said.
And... scene. Boehner ended the press conference.
Maybe people are concerned about Amtrak's $21 billion backlog in maintenance and repair. That's the type of "nonsense" that Democrats were trying to address by increasing Amtrak funding another $1.31 billion instead of cutting about a fifth of its budget.
For more on the GOP meltdown (including Boehner video), head below the fold.
Boehner isn't the only Republican defending the House's slash and burn infrastructure habits. GOP Rep. Mike Simpson went at it with Democratic Rep. Steve Israel in the committee hearing where Republicans ultimately voted to cut Amtrak's budget just hours after the crash.
After Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) told the committee that Congress had “failed to invest in their safety,” an irate Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) accused him of exploiting the incident.
“You tied it directly to an accident and a tragedy and suggested because we hadn’t funded it that caused that accident and you have no idea what caused it – and that’s a shame,” Simpson said.
Yep. When your party doesn't fund infrastructure projects, that's the risk you take Congressman—being on the hook for safety concerns.
Joe cut-happy himself, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, skirted the issue entirely Wednesday on Fox & Friends. Amtrak has been struggling to install Positive Train Control (PTC) technology that would give railroads the ability to stop or slow trains in case of a driver emergency. Josh Israel has the details:
Ryan noted that Congress had already “authorized and mandated the sort of speed control systems to be put in place,” though he noted “it wasn’t put in place here at this time.” Asked by Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade whether Congress had actually funded those systems, Ryan claimed that they had.
“Yes!” Ryan responded, “Yeah, we already passed an Amtrak funding, an authorization bill earlier this year. And the appropriations process is working its way through right now.”
Ryan did not note that this appropriation would be well below Amtrak’s request which had included millions for PTC — and below even the past several years’ funding levels. And if Congress had provided the necessary funds to install PTC across the country, there would be no need for a Senate bill filed just weeks ago to delay the implementation deadline from December 2015 to 2020.
Hard to believe he left that out.
Here's the Boehner vid for your viewing pleasure.
