Impoverished Long Islander Pleads for "The Ethan Allen" Subsidy  
By Martin Harris

In the heart of NYC's suburban Nassau County graciously presides the upper-middle-class (but no beach-front) village of Glen Head, a place I barely recall from a few of my pre-K years spent in nearby (Long-Island-Sound-public-beach-only) Sea Cliff, then the somewhat down-scale counterpoint to the adjacent and definitely up-scale (Long-Island-Sound-private-beaches-only) Glen Cove. I wasn't paying much attention in those days to the socio-economic status of Glen Head, so I looked it up on the Web at city-data.com recently and found that, for example, the median family income in 2007 was $92,802, and the median house value was $716,741. The comparable US figures (2005, from the Taxpayers' Network) are $55,832 for MFI and $167,500 for MHV. Vermont figures are $57,170 for MFI and $173,400 for MHV. Income-wise, the Vermont family comes in at 62 percent of the Glen Head family.

Potato farming isn't the economic mainstay of Nassau County any more; one of the first post-WWII Levittowns was built there in 1946, and Glen Head's economic lifeline is now the commuter rail line to NYC, where the $93K incomes are earned and brought back to support a high-end suburban life-style. Well, not entirely: the original Long Island RR, an independent business enterprise from 1832 through its purchase by the Pennsylvania RR in 1900, went bankrupt in 1949 and went into New York State ownership in 1966, at which point lower-income quintile taxpayers elsewhere began subsidizing the artificially reduced rail fares paid by its upper-income-quintile commuters. Presently it's part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which also runs similarly subsidized commuter lines north into the high-MFI and  -MHV commuter enclaves of New York's Westchester County and Connecticut's Fairfield County. If you look up the fiscal 08 accounting for the MTA, you'll see that its $8.2B budget derives only 55% ($4.5B) from user fares; the remaining 45% ($3.7B) derives from state and federal subsidies paid in by taxpayers mostly of lower income than Glen Head's information-sector class, who, apparently, can't be reasonably expected to pay their own full fares into and out of Penn Station. The subsidy expectation is now, apparently, genetically hard-wired into Glen Head thinking.

It surfaced in a 1 Jan 09 Rutland Herald Letter to the Editor by Glen Header Rob Simonds, who wants the taxpayers of Vermont to continue to subsidize his rail visits via Amtrak; not for his personal benefit, you understand, but because it's a "service that only provides a benefit to the [Rutland] area during these difficult economic times".  The rail service doesn't pay its own costs -maybe that's because the fares are too low? --and Amtrak requires a Vermont taxpayer subsidy to continue the Ethan Allen from Penn Station to Rutland. The full annual subsidy amount is $2.2M, which is revealed by adding the VT AoT's figure of $1.4M saved by stopping the Ethan Allen, plus $800K saved by not starting up the bus substitute. It works out to $68 per rider, the Herald reports.  That's $3 more than the standard adult fare, which Amtrak posts on its web site at $65. This suggests that the real cost is $133, of which the rider is expected to pay a bit less than half. That's an even better buy for Mr. Simonds than his MTA Penn Station fare, where he has to pay a bit more than half. I tend to agree with those who speculate that Glen Headers like Mr. Simonds would not readily self-demote in transportation-class from train to bus, if stingy Vermonters were willing to spring only for that lesser subsidy.

If I may speculate on the Simonds family finances, I would guess that his plea for continued Vermont-taxpayer subsidy for their Rutland visits derives from his personal cash-flow problems, and that, even though his family is making $93K, maybe they're maxed out on all their plastic. If I'm right, wouldn't that mean that he's not well-positioned for much discretionary spending once they arrive at the tourism magnet of southwestern Vermont, and wouldn't that pretty much cancel out the pay-to-play-based economic arguments to get him into the State, by subsidy if necessary, so that he can spend lavishly upon arrival? If, on the other hand, the Simonds all walk from the new Amtrak station to the nearby charity food and lodging purveyors, that wouldn't project to add much to the coffers of either local private enterprise or the more distant State government.

If I'm wrong, and Mr. Simonds can easily afford to ski, eat, sleep, antique-purchase, leaf-peep, and maybe even bar-hop, can't he just as easily afford to pay his full train fare? He probably can, or he wouldn't still be a resident of an expensive locale like Glen Head --it boasts a 2007 cost-of-living index of 168 compared to a national average of 100-and so he ought to be able to spring for the full $68-per-capita and not cajole the Golden Dome folks to take it by threat of force from the locals, less fortunate (a little PC-lingo, there) than Glen Headers like him.
 

Martin Harris is a former Chairman of Citizens for Property Rights