“You have no idea, no idea what caused this accident … don’t use this tragedy that way!” said a heated Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, ahead of a contentious House Appropriations Committee vote to slash Amtrak’s budget Wednesday. Less than 24 hours after a deadly Amtrak train crash near Philadelphia, members of Congress were already trying to assign blame and win rail funding.
Voters “may not know what sequester is; they may not know what caps are. But they do understand common sense. They expect us to watch over their safety – when they get on trains, when they get on planes, when they are in cars, when they are on highways. Last night we failed them. We failed to invest in their safety. We failed to make their safety a priority,” accused Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y.
Taking up Israel’s theme, Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., said: “Here we’re saying when the experts at Amtrak … make a request and the president sends it over, that here in the Congress we have the wisdom to cut [the budget] … and we’re saying ‘Oh it’s okay – you don’t have to worry about it, it’s not going to affect safety. You don’t have to worry about dying in a train accident.'”
At this point a visibly angry Simpson took the House floor to criticize Democrats.
“You have no idea, no idea what caused this accident, and to use that as a means of supporting the last amendment, support it if you want to,” said Simpson, wagging his finger. “But don’t use this tragedy in that way.”
Republicans have been subsidizing special interests when “what we should have been doing is subsidizing the safety of the passengers on that Amtrak train yesterday,” countered Israel.
“It’s not just our trains,” Israel continued. “It is our bridges that are failing. It is our highways that are congested and riddled with potholes. It is our runways, our airports. … We are divesting from America.”
“That’s not what you said,” shot back Simpson. “You tied it directly to an accident and a tragedy that happened last night and suggested [that it happened] because we hadn’t funded it,” said Simpson. “It was beneath you.”
The House Appropriations Committee ultimately slashed Amtrak’s customary $1.4 billion budget by $260 million, despite Democrat efforts to keep or increase funding.
