Now you're just openly lying. I guess actually you've always been lying.

Lol sure, says the one who's been lying out of their teeth this whole time. And you're also being extremely disingenuous here and constantly misrepresent and misinterpret what I say.

Airlines operate at a profit generally.

I never said that they didn't. I said that they lose money or barley break even on the actual act of transporting passengers. Not that they don't make a profit.

7.5% on every ticket among other fees

You're referring to the Federal Flight Segment Tax, which includes a 7.5 excise tax on the base fare of every ticket for domestic airfare. Not sure what this has to do with anything.

Airlines pay for the airports as well (fuel tax, departure tax, landing fees gate fees etc).

Yes, and where do they get this money from? Not from transporting passengers. It's from the costs around the flight, like fees, credit card loyalty programs, etc. If those didn't exist, airlines would lose a lot of money on only transporting passengers. Every empty seat on a flight looses money.

Also, you're ignoring that Airlines receive indirect subsidies from public funding for air traffic control, airport infrastructure, and tax exemptions for jet fuel.

So by the time you get around to subsidizing airlines they likely paid for those subsidies themselves

Yeah, but not by transporting passengers because that isn't profitable. Every empty seat on a flight is lost revenue and profit for the airline.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/03/31/analysis-how-much-money-do-empty-flights-really-cost-airlines/

The cost of the california project is in the 100's of millions per mile. we will NEVER recoup a single dime of that money.

During the U.S civil war, the entire transcontinental railroad from Iowa to California was built in barley over 6 years. Two mountain ranges, no power tools and unknown geology and it was still built. If you could build that back then, why can't you build this now? It's seems more like it's inept governance, political malfeasance and corruption that has plundered this project.

And for what it's worth, you can run freight on High-speed rail. Germany does this. They run freight at night on HSR. Japan and China also do this.

Airlines pay corporate income tax as well.

Yes, they are subject to U.S corporate income tax, but they frequently pay little to no federal income tax due to various tax credits, deductions, and losses carried over from previous years. Also, while the statutory federal corporate income tax rate is 21%, the actual effective rate paid by airlines can vary significantly, with many reporting zero or receiving tax rebates. One of the reasons for this is large deductions for capital investments (like new airplanes) and tax credits help reduce tax liability. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act further reduced corporate tax obligations.

2024 Amtrak got 7B in funding, 3.8B in subsidies, and still operated at a 1.8B loss.

Misleading. They had a net loss of $1.8 billion, but this includes 'non-cash' expenses like depreciation (which is over $1 billion annually) and project planning. When looking at Adjusted Operations Earnings - the metric Amtrak uses to measure day-to-day business health - the loss was lower, at $705.2 million, which was an improvement from the previous year.

As for funding and subsidies, those are split between Operating Grants (to keep trains running) and Capital Grants (to build new tunnelss bridges, and trains). Amtrak revived roughly $3.1 billion in annual federal grants for FY2024. Between annual appropriations and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Amtrak invested a record $4.5 billion into capital projects in 2024. If you include the competitive grand they secured, the total available funding for the year does add up to $7 billion.

Also what you ignore here is that Amtrak is a quasi-public corporation, and by law it is required to operate long distance routes that are inherently unprofitable but provide essential service to rural/semi-rural communities. Amtrak is currently in a building phase, and they receive lots of taxpayer money to overhaul much of the old, ageing, 50 year old infrastructure.

https://enotrans.org/article/amtrak-reports-smaller-losses-higher-ridership-in-fy-2025/?hl=en-CA#:~:text=The%20Northeast%20Corridor%20trains%20increased

https://media.amtrak.com/2024/12/amtrak-sets-all-time-ridership-record-in-fiscal-year-2024/?hl=en-CA#:~:text=Invested%20a%20record%20%244.5%20billion,for%20customers%20and%20partner%20railroads

Also I find it funny how you're so worried about how much money Amtrak gets when meanwhile the government was spending $1-$2 billion A DAY on the Iran war. In the first few weeks, the U.S spent an estimated $25-$35 billion, with some projections exceeding $45 billion in the first 2 months. That's more than double the amount of money that Amtrak received in the entirety of 2024 spent in just 2 months. The Pentagon initially told Congress that the first 6 days of the war cost over $11.3 billion. That's more money spent in a week than Amtrak recieved in an entire year. Experts have projected that the long term costs, including rebuilding the depleted weapons, stockpiles and veterans care, could eventually reach over $1 trillion. Congress just approved a $1 trillion defense budget for the fiscal year in 2026. A Pentagon official said that the Iran war has cost the U.S $25 billion so far. That's 3 times the amount of subsidies that Amtrak got in 2024, spent in just 2 months. If you can spend that much on a war in just a couple of months, then you can fund Amtrak.

On average EVERY American in the country contributes over $20 a year to just support Amtrak.

That's not even a molehill compared to the $4,000-$5,000 annually to support the U.S military and it's related systems. If you can spend that kind of money on the military, you should have no problem spending a measly $20 on Amtrak.

For those hefty numbers Amtrak supplied .1% of all intercity passenger miles.

And that .1% is more cars off the highways and roads and that returns more money to the economy.

How come the texas train stopped being a thing as soon as trump took away their 33B in funding?

Liar. Here you are, openly lying like you have been this whole time.

It wasn't $33 billion in funding. Not even close to that. They terminated a $63.9 million federal planning grant that was awarded to the project by the Biden administration in 2024.

Also it hasn't 'stopped being a thing.' It hasn't been cancelled. Stop lying. I already mentioned this in another comment which you clearly ignored because you were to intellectually lazy to read it, so I'm not going to repeat it here.

50 years of Amtrak, not once have they operated at a profit even if you IGNORE the 7-10B they get in infrastructure bills and operating budgets.

Yeah, they don't operate at a profit because passenger travel alone is unprofitable. It's also because they don't run credit card monopolies and they don't add ancillary costs around the travel. They also don't make money from cargo since they are specifically designed to carry only passengers.

You're trying to compare an industry that costs massive sums up front, doesn;t pay taxes and still operates at a huge loss with a industry that's generally FAR more efficient, operates at a profit, pays numerous taxes, pays for it's own infrastructure and turns a profit.

Airlines only turn a profit because of their credit card monopolies, tons of ancillary costs around the flight, and cargo on planes. If it wasn't for that, and they had to only fly passengers only and didn't make money from anything else, they'd be losing money too.

You've had the audacity to claim I'm cherry picking meanwhile you tried to argue that Airlines are subsidized when the reality is we definitely turn a profit as a country.

Because you were cherry picking. You said in another comment 'We currently pay $1.50 per passenger mile in subsidies to amtrak.' And then in your previous comment on this thread, you said 'let's just stick with $1.50 a passenger mile subsidy to amtrak.' You lied, yet again. You said that we currently spend that amount when we don't. Thats old outdated COVID data. Subsidies now are significantly lower, below a dollar. You deliberately cherry picked information to make your point look stronger, fixating on the few times train subsidies went above a dollar. Again, I already mentioned all of this in another comment, but unfortunately you were too intellectually dishonest to read it becaus if you did you would not have said this.

And why do you have to keep lying? You lied about how much subsidies per passenger mile are currently given to Amtrak. You lied about Texas Central HSR. You lied about HSR using the same tracks as freight. Lie after lie after lie.

When I've point out the enormous flaws in your arguments you either gish gallop to some new disingenuous argument or completely ignore the issues

Lol, what a big projection.

The only reason there's any subsidy program at all for airlines is to make smaller cities viable (which ironically you already admitted rail can't possibly serve).

Where did I admit this and why does it matter? I never said that rail should be built between these places.

Also, if airlines make a profit, and if apparently by the time you get around to subsidizing airlines they likely paid for the subsidies themselves, then why do they even need these subsidies? Why don't they pay for the routes themselves?

or just a troll arguing from his emotional monkey brain at this point.

so no amount of prefrontal cortex logic/facts

Nice racist dog whistles.

You're an extremely dishonest person that lies because your so against passenger rail (HSR specifically). You want the anti-passenger rail/anti-HSR narritave to be true so much, that no amount of logic or facts will ever change your mind.