Letters to the Editor

Moving on down the track?

I have come to expect regular Amtrak bashing in The Washington Times, but this column (“The future of Amtrak,” Op-Ed, April 19) has forced me to respond.

It is certainly your choice to complain of the $26.6 billion “and counting” that has been invested in Amtrak with little or no visible results. Amtrak began service on May 1, 1971, and by my count it’s coming up on its 33rd birthday. That comes out to $806 million per year. That’s million with an “m” guys. Per year. It’s also roughly what the feds pay to rebuild three freeway interchanges.

That $26.6 billion figure over 33 years just also happens to be less than half what the feds spent on airline subsidies in 1996 alone. I’m not sure what the final cost to bail out U.S. airlines after September 11 is, but I would be willing to bet it’s far more cash than Amtrak has ever seen in its entire existence. Yet nobody blinks an eye at these figures.

Look up your history, folks. Railroad passenger service has not been profitable since the 19th century and turning Amtrak’s operations over to the states will not magically make it so.

I agree the states should be assuming a greater role in funding our transportation infrastructure, but my native Ohio is just one of the many states that refuse to pay a dime for passenger rail. And with the state’s current fiscal condition, don’t hold your breath waiting for Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati service anytime soon. It is too busy spending billions to widen I-71 to six lanes.

If you are willing to kill long-distance trains simply because they make no money, then maybe it’s time to get the feds out of the highway and airline business where the real money is spent with little or no visible results.

TODD STOFFER

Cleveland

Give credit where it’s due

I take very strong exception to Bruce Bartlett’s characterization (“Arsenal road maps … and detours,” Commentary, Wednesday) that the “system of deliberation, debate, analysis and discussion” in the Bush White House “seems unusually weak” and that domestic policy decisions are made “on the basis of biased presentations rather than objective analysis.”

As the former assistant to the vice president for domestic policy, I can attest first-hand to the thorough and objective policy analysis performed by the professional staff in the White House National Economic Council and Domestic Policy Council, the Office of Management and Budget, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) and numerous domestic cabinet departments and agencies.

Every major domestic and economic policy issue is thoroughly and deliberately discussed and analyzed by the policy staff before it is brought to the president’s attention. Each issue is initially discussed, debated and analyzed by a Policy Coordinating Committee (PCC) comprised of special assistants to the president and policy staff-level equivalents in other offices of the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and the relevant agencies. The PCC then produces a detailed memorandum or discussion paper that provides an overview of the policy issue, possible policy options — and in the case of many economic issues — an analysis by the professional economists at the CEA.

This policy memorandum is then debated and refined by a Deputies Committee, made up of deputy assistants to the president, deputy cabinet secretaries and similarly ranked EOP officials, and then by a Principals Committee of Assistants to the President and relevant cabinet secretaries.

The memorandum produced by the Principals Committee is put into the staffing process, requiring review and approval by White House senior staff. The final step in the process is a presentation of the policy recommendations and options by the lead White House policy official and cabinet secretary to the president.

Depending on the complexity of the policy issue, and, if relevant, the time frame dictated by congressional action, this process from beginning to end can take anywhere between a couple of weeks to several months. For example, it took about five months to develop the president’s “Jobs and Growth” tax-relief package, which was unveiled in January 2003.Thepolicy-making process involved in developing the president’s budget proposal starts a full six months before it is released in February.

By taking at face value Ron Suskind and former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s characterization of the White House decision-making process as weak and lacking any real analysis, Mr. Bartlett diminishes the outstanding work performed by the dozens of policy staffers in the White House and in the agencies on behalf of the president.

CESAR V. CONDA

Washington

Friends and foes

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. luckily gets it wrong (“Farewell to the new Europe?” Commentary, Tuesday ): The new European constitution’s provision for the badly named Common Foreign and Security Policy is very far from giving France — alone or with Germany — any kind of directive influence. In fact, the “New Europe” members joining on May 1 are overwhelmingly pro-United States — and will make it even harder for France to set the agenda in the European Union.

This is why the French have pushed for concerted initiatives with Germany and Great Britain — as, for example, in the mission to Iran last fall. Such an effort, however, has justifiably been met with disdain from the small European member states. Furthermore, this attempt is a testimony to the big countries’ loss of leverage within the European Union, including in matters of foreign relations. The constitution, if ever completed, will only partially make up for the increased unwieldiness of the EU decision-making process after the enlargement. There will never be a common EU foreign policy in any meaningful sense — and luckily so.

HENRIK O. BREITENBAUCH

Paris

…

EU courts are endangering U.S. judicial independence by trying to enforce EU law on American companies who want to do business within EU territory? How mean and cheeky these Europeans have become lately to take the freedom to do exactly the things the United States has done for years.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s conception of “New Europe” is very wrong. New Europe consists of those countries that do not ask anymore “how high” if they are told by the United States to jump. The unilateralist foreign policy of the Bush administration should have made it crystal clear to even the last European that this type of New Europe is needed as soon as possible. For this undertaking, a common army, foreign policy and law enforcement are absolutely necessary.

Is this against U.S. interests ? If U.S. interests are hegemony and paternalization, definitely. If U.S. interests are cooperation and equal partnership, no. If the United States wants Europeans as allies, it has to realize this new reality and adapt accordingly.

THOMAS MOHR ENZIANWEG

Vienna, Austria

Chink in the armor

Thomas Sowell made an excellent point in saying that the strength of a chain is always a measure of its weakest link (“Weakest link,” Commentary, April 15). No thinking person believes the terrorists in Iraq can defeat the U.S. military. But if they can break the U.S. weakest link they can win the war. That weak link is the American citizen who defines a just American war as one in which no American soldier dies. Inaccurate bombing of Kosovo from a safe altitude of 40,000 feet was an acceptable and safe war in their mind.

The Democratic Party, from the grass roots to its presidential candidate, is the weak link as it declares loudly the agony about America fighting an “unjust war.” Democrats also oppose President Bush with more vigor than they oppose those who would gladly become suicide martyrs to kill more Americans on American soil.

Apparently it is a just war when American citizens die as 3,000 did on September 11, but it is an unjust war should soldiers die fighting back. Mr. Sowell’s point about America’s weak link is valid. The terrorists’ only hope for victory is that a weak link will be elected to a position of leadership.

LARRY VOLKENING

Houston