Dems, Republicans unite to defeat conservative effort to defund Amtrak

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The House rejected a conservative proposal late Wednesday night to eliminate $1.1 billion in federal subsidies for Amtrak.

An amendment offered by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) to a government spending package for the next fiscal year failed on a 128-293 vote with a bipartisan coalition uniting in opposition.

Brooks, a member of the House Freedom Caucus who failed to advance in the Alabama Senate GOP primary last month, argued that Amtrak subsidies are unnecessary.

"Stated differently, what policy justification is there for forcing Americans who don't use Amtrak to subsidize the travel of Americans who do use Amtrak? I know of none," Brooks said during House floor debate.

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We don't give these kinds of subsidies to people who ride on airplanes," he added.

But Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Department of Transportation, said Brooks's amendment would be counterproductive. While Diaz-Balart diplomatically called Brooks "sincere," the Florida Republican said that eliminating Amtrak's federal subsidies would actually result in higher costs.

"This bill is not just arbitrary decisions. You see, we held hearings. And we carefully scrubbed each account to make sure that the reductions that we made were responsible and that were actually going to result in reductions," Diaz-Balart said.

"This is not the right way to do it," Diaz-Balart said of the proposal offered by Brooks. "It is not prudent to eliminate an entire transportation option, by the way."

Brooks countered that passengers should be able to pay the full costs of riding Amtrak trains, which reach more than 500 destinations in 46 states.

"I would submit that there is zero - zero - evidence that Amtrak passengers cannot absorb higher fares to pay their own way," Brooks said.

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