MSNBC’s Roth on Crash: ‘Amtrak Is Being Starved for Funding’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
 budgets going into infrastructure? 
ROBERTS: "My colleague Zach Roth here on set with me. As we talk about this and the fact that the timing here is very awkward. I know that you've got this new piece up so talk about how the transportation bill today is cutting almost 20% of what it would typically give to Amtrak?" 
ROTH: "Yeah, that's absolutely right. You know, we should point out that there was a bill passed by the House that's a long-term funding bill for Amtrak that actually didn't make a whole lot of cuts, kept funding relatively stable. The Senate hasn't yet acted on that. They haven't passed their own bill. They haven't passed a long-term funding bill since 2008, and at that time they only did that in response to a crash in California that killed 25 people so it will be interesting to see if last night's events prompt Senate to finally act on this bill that people say is much needed. 
ROBERTS: "Meanwhile, we have this kick the can mentality, you know, down the road in Congress right now. We've got the American society of civil engineers giving the nation a d-plus on the state of countrywide infrastructure, and now we have this issue of the -- in the investigation of this, and we're also 18 days away from the expiration of federal spending on highways, bridges and mass transit, and if this isn't a wake-up call, what is?" 
ROTH: "Yeah. I spoke to experts on this. They are very careful to say, look, we don't know yet what caused this crash and we don't want to jump to any conclusions, and you saw Republicans in that hearing kind of accusing some of the Democrats of doing that, but they do say it's a legitimate question to raise, that Amtrak is being starved for funding and then played for these problems." 
ROBERTS: "We don't even need to look at say accidents to know that other countries are outspending us. China is spending $128 billion on its rail system this year alone, so just in comparison, we can just look at country to country. Msnbc's Zack Roth. As we mentioned vice president Joe Biden is a devoted Amtrak traveler. Amtrak is indeed a way of life for millions across the country and Frances is back now with a look at the numbers of just how popular a travel system it is."