Trump to Betray Middle America by Defunding Rural Amtrak Trains

In Trump's most recent budget request, he proposed reorganizing Amtrak trains around shorter-length, state-sponsored services, effectively killing off many of the the trains that run through Republican states.

Trump’s budget calls long-distance Amtrak trains “a vestige of when train service was the only viable transcontinental transportation option” rather than the aviation, interstate highway and bus network now in place.

But advocates say the proposal to eliminate $630 million in federal aid for long-distance Amtrak routes will hurt people who rely on them, particularly the elderly, and about 220 smaller communities in 23 states.

“These communities really depend on these trains as an economic lifeline,” Jeans-Gail said. “There are small-town, rural communities — ironically, the same communities that put Trump in the White House — where people can’t go to a local airport. Often, that one train a day is their only alternative to driving.”

"What we’re seeing,” Delaney said in a statement, “is the inherent dissonance that is generated by the president campaigning like a New Deal Democrat on infrastructure and then governing like a tea partyer.”

The $16.2 billion budget for discretionary transportation spending represents a nearly 13 percent reduction in transportation spending over fiscal 2017.

Asked about what he saw in the budget, Jeans-Gail said, “I’m just looking at the smoking wreckage.”

This frees up funding for highway construction, which is notable because the Israeli-owned engineering firm Shikun-uu'binui just bought a 30% stake in America's largest toll operator.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/trump-budget-slashes-federal-aid-for-rail-long-distance-amtrak-routes/2017/05/23/55df2bc4-3fdf-11e7-adba-394ee67a7582_story.html