Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, slammed the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee for approving a bill that would cut $252 million from Amtrak’s budget, a decision Coons called “striking” on Thursday morning.
That vote came less than 24 hours after an Amtrak commuter train derailed on Tuesday night, shutting down rail travel between Washington and New York.
Coons, who rides on Amtrak to travel between his Delaware home and the capital, admonished Republicans for cutting Amtrak’s budget at a time when the public rail system needs more money to modernize its aging infrastructure.
Republicans have for years pushed to slash spending for domestic programs, and most have looked to lower spending on Amtrak in a bid to privatize the commuter railway.
“If we were investing anything like our competitors, we would have a modern national train system,” Coons said Thursday on CNN’s “New Day.” “We have an aging infrastructure that we have to pay for.”
And while Democrats and many Republicans agree that U.S. infrastructure faces a “significant backlog of underinvestment,” Coons said the challenge is finding a way to pay for those investments.
Coons touted Amtrak’s increased ridership and revenue in recent years as a reason to invest more in the railways, particularly in the Northeast Corridor that connects Washington and Boston.
Democrats raised the Amtrak crash as the House committee debated the funding bill, insisting the federal government should invest more — and not less — in Amtrak to make the railways safer and help boost the economy.
Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, rebuked Democrats for those comments.
“Don’t use this tragedy in that way. It was beneath you,” he said.
Democrats were looking to boost Amtrak funding by $1 billion.