Jacobin suggests nationalizing Greyhound; questions rise with Amtrak’s historic losses, increased spending despite deficits, and calls for more nationalizations by Salon.

SOCIALISTS KEEP LOOKING TO “UNEXPECTEDLY” NATIONALIZE: Nationalize Greyhound.

—Jacobin, today.

If only there was a nationalized transportation system that has existed for decades that we could use as a benchmark to see how nationalizing Greyhound would likely proceed:

After posting historic spending deficits in 2021 and 2022, Amtrak is planning to spend more in fiscal year 2024 as federal funding expands to “unprecedented” levels.

Amtrak posted operating losses of $1.08 billion in 2021 and $886.8 million in 2022, far greater than pre-COVID losses, but is still going ahead with expansion. By comparison, Amtrak lost $29.4 million in 2019, the year before the pandemic hit.

The increase in spending was pandemic-related, according to Amtrak.

Amtrak asked Congress for a $350 million bump in funding for fiscal year 2024 to $3.65 billion.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) was signed into law by President Joe Biden on November 15, 2021. The law authorizes $1.2 trillion for transportation and infrastructure spending with $550 billion of that figure going toward “new” investments and programs. Amtrak will receive $85.2 billion via IIJA from FY 2022 through FY 2026.

—Amtrak presses on with more funding and expansion despite historic losses, the Washington Examiner, May 19^th.

And it’s curious that Jacobin doesn’t want competition for Greyhound’s services, when they exist as competition among the left for Salon’s longstanding goals of nationalizing every industry in the US:

• “Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle.”

—Salon.com, March 6, 2013.

• “Let’s nationalize Fox News: Imagining a very different media…Excerpted from ‘Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA.’

—Salon.com, January 18, 2014.

• “Like [the late communist Pete] Seeger and the FDR cargo cult, Salon also harbors turn-the-clock-back fantasies of their own: Last month, the publication called for the nationalization of the news media because it was uncomfortable with the glut of right-leaning news and opinion led by — you guessed it! — Fox News. (Hmmm — I wonder if someone in the FCC read that article?) Now the Website wishes to turn the clock back on the film industry because of a perceived glut of independent films.”

—Easy Riders, Raging Stasists, Ed Driscoll.com, February 22, 2014.

• “Let’s nationalize Amazon and Google: Publicly funded technology built Big Tech. They’re huge and ruthless and define our lives. They’re close to monopolies. Let’s make them public utilities.”

—Salon.com, July 8, 2014.

by Ed Driscoll