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Funded this properly that that's what caused the accident when you have no idea no idea what caused this accident. don't use this tragedy in that way. it was beneath you. >> in the end, the house appropriations committee voted to cut amtrak by $250 million. amtrak will be funded at $1.1 billion annually down from $1.4 billion. as a measure of what that means, amtrak will receive a billion dollars of annual funding from congress at the same time that china is poised to invest $128 billion in its national rail service this year. joining me now from washington is congresswoman eleanor holmes nort...

Funding has been a political fight. since its founding 45 years ago, amtrak and who should pay for amtrak has been the subject of perpetual debate. when amtrak was created in 1970 by the nixon administration, it was designated a for-profit corporation. the federal government would give it enough money to start and then the goal was for amtrak to become self-sufficient and eventually turn a profit. the problem, that never happened. and since its first day hitting the tracks on may 1st 1971 congress has continued to pay for amtrak to operate. another problem, it probably hasn't been funded enoug...

California that killed 25 people so it will be interesting to see if last night's 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' what caused this crash and we don't want to jump to any conclusions, and you saw republicans in that hearing kind of accusing som...

With them. >> also lost in this tragedy, jim gains for the associated press, 48-year-old father survived by wife and two children. currently missing, 39-year-old rachel jacobs a philadelphia based ceo. her co-workers were sharing her photo with reporters in hopes of safely finding her. this tragedy is raising new concerns whether or not this could have been prevented through better infrastructure. frances is back now with more on the aging issue with our infrastructure infrastructure. >> looking at the money to back it up to see those improvements in doing that we wanted to look at u.s. rail i...

Cars on the roads for 50 years. it virtually wipes out the vast majority of the president's initiative to increase mileage. i would doubt he would wake to take a initiative that he worked so heart hard for and has been successful that would wipe oat 70% of this with the pipeline. if you damage from it it's about $128 billion in damage. that's a pretty big hammer over this country, and if we can turn that around that's a big thing to bargain away. this isn't just a little pipeline with 42,000 jobs and all that good stuff the republicans are saying. this is a very big hammer that a very responsi...