Republicans – how is it even possible for a party to always be on the wrong side of everything? How is that even possible?
After multiple deaths and even more injuries in Tuesday’s Amtrak train crash, here comes the Republicans and another attempt to cut funding to the agency.
As investigators still searched through the wreckage of the Amtrak train in Philadelphia, a political battle seethed over funding for the long-neglected rail network.
The crash of the train travelling between Washington DC to New York came just hours before politicians in the capital are due to meet to discuss a budget bill that could see funding for Amtrak cut by millions.
Supporters of Amtrak have been lobbying the House Appropriations Committee, not to reduce funding containing within a broader transportation bill. A draft of the bill would see Amtrak’s funding cut to to $1.13bn from the $1.4bn it typically receives annually, Politico reported.
On Wednesday morning, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the government had sent a letter to the committee urging it not to cut funding to Amtrak.
“There is clearly more that can be done when we’re talking about a railway infrastructure that is decades-old,” Mr Earnest told CNN.
“If there’s an opportunity for us to make further investments in our infrastructure that would better safeguard the traveling public, then those are investments that we should make.”
Reports said that Democrats had already been planning to try and defend funding for the network. But that will likely take on a new urgency given Tuesday night’s accident.
