Mc Cain on Amtrak and Transit and RAIL

[tufsu1]

Obama claims to support Amtrak and transit. Does anyone have his record. Does he have a record?

Here is a link to his position....its important to note that neither Clinton nor McCain had a transportation/infrastructure position on their websites during the primary season.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/additional/#transportation

[thelakelander]

Thank for the link, tufsu1.  Its refreshing to see, since the federal government has been heavily anti mass transit in the last eight years. 

[Lunican]

Here is an excerpt:

Support Amtrak Funding:
Barack Obama has been a strong supporter of federal financial support for Amtrak. Obama believes we need to reform Amtrak to improve accountability. In many parts of the country, Amtrak is the only form of reliable transportation. In the U.S. Senate, Obama is a cosponsor of the Passenger Rail Investment and Innovation Act of 2007, a leading act to provide long-term federal investment to Amtrak. As president, Barack Obama will continue to fight for Amtrak funding and reform so that individuals, families and businesses throughout the country have safe and reliable transportation options.

Support Development of High-Speed Freight and Passenger Rail:
Barack Obama supports development of high-speed rail networks across the country. Providing passengers with safe high-speed rail will have significant environmental and metropolitan planning advantages and help diversify our nation’s transportation infrastructure. Our domestic rail freight capacity must also be strengthened because our demand for rail transportation has never been greater, leaving many key transportation hubs stretched to capacity. Obama is committed to renewing the federal government’s commitment to high speed rail so that our nation’s transportation infrastructure continues to support, and not hinder, our nation’s long-term economic growth.

PDF: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/FactSheetTransportation.pdf

[thelakelander]

Here's more:

Invest in Public Transportation:

Public transit not only reduces the amount of time individuals spend commuting, but also has significant benefits to air quality, public health and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  Barack Obama will re-commit federal resources to public mass transportation projects across the country.  Obama will work with state and local governments across the country on efforts to create new, effective public transportation systems and modernize our aging urban public transit infrastructure.


Create Greater Incentives for Public Transit Usage:

The federal tax code rewards driving to work by allowing employers to provide parking benefits of $205 per month tax free to their employees.  The tax code provides employers with commuting benefits for transit, carpooling or vanpooling capped at $105 per month.  This gives drivers a nearly 2:1 advantage over transit users.  Obama will reform the tax code to make benefits for driving and public transit or ridesharing equal.


Strengthen Metropolitan Planning to Cut Down Traffic Congestion:

Our communities will better serve all of their residents if we are able to leave our cars, to walk, bicycle and have access other transportation alternatives.  As president, Barack Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account.  Obama will build upon his efforts in the Senate to ensure that more Metropolitan Planning Organizations create policies to incentivize greater bicycle and pedestrian usage of roads and sidewalks.  As president, Obama will work to provide states and local governments with the resources they need to address sprawl and create more livable communities.

[tufsu1]

Thank for the link, tufsu1.  Its refreshing to see, since the federal government has been heavily anti mass transit in the last eight years. 

sure thing...its amazing how different the two candidates/parties are on this issue (and many others)....and yet, many Americans are still undecided!

[vicupstate]

Long but interesting article on the subject.

Gilded Highways
Why the government is spending $100 billion a year to get you to drive more.

Daniel Gross
Newsweek Web Exclusive

Updated: 11:36 AM ET Jul 31, 2008

The Transportation Department reported that Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May 2008 than in May 2007, a 3.7 percent drop. The result: rising demand for mass transit and declining revenues for the Federal Highway Trust Fund, which is funded by gas taxes. The Bush administration's counterintuitive policy response, as the New York Times reported, has been for the Highway Trust Fund to borrow funds from the department's mass-transit account.

Naturally, many urban-dwelling, car-hating socialists (as well as suburban-dwelling, Jeep-driving moderates like me) believe this is precisely the time to put more government fundsâ€"not lessâ€"into alternate modes of transportation: natural-gas powered buses, bicycle-sharing programs, trains, light-rail systems, subways, ferries, and rickshaws. The notion that the government should invest more in mass-transit infrastructure has always raised conservative hackles. As they sit on the Amtrak Acela, or ride the New York City subway or Washington, D.C., Metro, to their think-tank jobs or to the Wall Street Journal's offices, free-market types frequently fulminate against the systems that ferry them around. (New York Times house libertarian John Tierney's "Amtrak Must Die" from 2002 is a classic in the genre.) To such critics, money spent on mass transit, such as the $1.3 billion 2007 appropriation for Amtrak (here's Amtrak's 2007 annual report) represents an unconscionable waste of taxpayer funds. With their top-down bureaucracies and public ownership, they argue, mass-transit systems can never hope to compete economically with the private-sector alternativeâ€"driving gasoline-powered cars. They can't compete culturally and socially, either, since rugged American individualists prefer sitting by themselves in traffic to rubbing shoulders with strangers. And for those few areas where it does make sense to have mass transit, the market will step in and provide.

This is one of the oldest political arguments in America. For a good chunk of the 19th century, the prospect of the federal government supporting "internal improvements"â€"i.e., canals, ports, roadsâ€"was a major source of partisan contention. Ultimately, the Jeffersonians and Jacksonians (and their heirs) lost out to the Whigs (and their heirs). Whether it was the Erie Canal, the first transcontinental railroad, or the interstate highway system, state and federal resources have repeatedly been deployed to build new types of transportation infrastructure that the private sector couldn't, or wouldn't, fund. Over time, these investments paid huge economic, social, and national-security dividends to the country.

What hasn't been acknowledged is that the automobile is supported by a government subsidy that dwarfs anything provided to mass transit. How big is the subsidy? By my (admittedly extremely crude) calculations, it could total nearly $100 billion per year. Americans can drive so much because there is an extremely extensive system of (largely free) roads for us to use. Despite some private-sector efforts, maintaining and building the nation's roads remains almost exclusively the preserve of government. Data from the Census Bureau on construction spending shows that this year, public spending on highways and streets is running at an annual rate of about $75 billion.

But that's not all. Tax credits and breaks for particular types of economic activity constitute a public subsidy of that activity. Taxpayers effectively subsidize home ownership through the mortgage interest deduction. They subsidize the use of mass transit through programs that permit people to purchase mass-transit tickets with pretax money. And taxpayers subsidize the purchase and operation of gas-powered automobiles in at least two big ways.

First, just as they can with other types of equipment, businesses and self-employed individuals can write down the cost of cars and trucks they own against their taxable income. This decade, the relevant portion of the tax code dealing with the issue, Section 179, was changed to provide extra taxpayer support for the purchase of very large cars. In 2003, as part of an effort to stimulate business investment, the law was changed to significantly increase the amount of deductions businesses could take on equipment, including vehicles that weighed more than 3 tons. (In the past, that category would have been limited to commercial vehicles, such as pickup trucks and moving vans. But in SUV-crazy America, that also means Hummers and Escalades.) So if a Realtor bought a $75,000 Hummer and used it mostly for business, she could take a $25,000 deduction from her taxable income in the first year of ownership. The stimulus package passed earlier this year included provisions that boosted the amount of total deductions businesses could take on equipment. But taxpayers aren't just subsidizing the purchase of gas-guzzlers by businesses. Thanks to tax credits for hybrids, they're also subsidizing the purchase of gas-sippers by individuals.

Self-employed individuals and businesses can also deduct the costs of operating a car for business purposes from their taxable income. In light of higher gas prices, the Internal Revenue Service this year boosted the mileage allowance to 58.5 cents per mile. A self-employed salesperson who drives 5,000 miles a year and is in the 33 percent tax bracket can thus save about $1,000 in tax payments. (The language of the allowance suggests that it applies only to carsâ€"not to bicycles, scooters, or motorcycles.)

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/149693

I'd like to see some breakdown on the highway funding.  Is all of it via gas taxes, or is it other government funding too, by and large.  Obviously the Better Jax Plan used sales taxes to pay for about a billion dollars of highway construction, in addition to the $100mm for mass transit.  Imagine if those figures were reversed.

BTW, when Delaney was mayor, there were quarterly progress reports on the BJP.  Does the city still provide those?

[vicupstate]

Thank for the link, tufsu1.  Its refreshing to see, since the federal government has been heavily anti mass transit in the last eight years. 

sure thing...its amazing how different the two candidates/parties are on this issue (and many others)....and yet, many Americans are still undecided!

That's because the ISSUSES don't get discussed.   

[thelakelander]

Obama Makes Quick Stop in Lakeland

...“The last recession in Florida ended with the election of a Democrat,’’ Obama said in an interview with The Ledger, referring to the election of Bill Clinton in 1992.

“We need to assure people that they will have health care, college access and affordable housing,” he said.

Obama said Republicans have done little to strengthen the economy and deal quickly with the crisis in the mortgage industry. And the record is as bad with energy, he noted, when asked about Republican nominee-apparent John McCain’s camp criticizing his energy plan.

They haven’t really paid attention. I have a plan to infuse $15 billion a year creating a transportation system, alternative fuels and dealing with the problem,’’ he said. “We have a plan. The McCain camp doesn’t, meaning for the last couple of weeks all you have heard is about Britney Spears and Paris Hilton,’’ a reference to Republican ads making fun of Obama’s celebrity status.

The Illinois senator’s brief stop was part of his two-day “I-4 Corridor’’ tour, which will continue with a town hall meeting in Brevard County on Saturday and a speech to the National Urban League’s annual conference in Orlando later that afternoon.

full article: http://www.theledger.com/article/20080801/NEWS/84486634/1410&title=Obama_Makes_Quick_Stop_in_Lakeland