Rank Has Privileges, Even for Dogs.
Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) is a member of the Republican chorus that complains about Amtrak needing a federal subsidy, paltry though it may be. Some time ago, the congressman was distressed to discover that Amtrak would not permit him to board one of their trains with his French bulldog, Lily (above, right). So Rep. Denham tacked an amendment on this year’s funding bill mandating that Amtrak allow dogs and cats and other small pets to travel with their owners.
Being a member of Congress must be nice. If you run into something that’s irritating or inconvenient, you just pass a law to make things right. And if that means micro-managing this country’s passenger rail system, so be it. Being able to do that must be heady stuff.
I ran across an excellent column the other day by Julianne Malveaux in which she made the same point about Congressman Denham. She takes it a step farther, however, suggesting that perhaps the reason things are screwed up in this country is because the people we send to Washington don’t experience the same problems and frustrations that ordinary folks must contend with on an every day basis. If they did, then some of these problems might actually get fixed!.
What would happen, she wonders, if we took away their all their staff people and made these politicians experience a week-long taste of the real world all by themselves?
Take House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and leave him in East Oakland, Calif. wearing a hoodie and some jeans. Take Small Business Committee Chair Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) and leave him in Fifth Ward Houston with just a few dollars in his wallet. Let Financial Services Chair Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) hang with a homie as his BFF in Ferguson, Mo. Put Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) in a housing project in Los Angeles. Let Homeland Security Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) spend a little time in New York’s Riker’s where civilization sometimes takes a break. Let Budget Chair Tom Price (R-Ga.) stand in line for a couple of hours to learn about unemployment benefits.
Getting back to the Denham amendment and the requirement that Amtrak accept small pets on their trains, do we have any idea what this is going to COST Amtrak? More to the point, does Rep. Denham? I doubt it. He just wants to be sure he can bring Lily in the event that, at some time in the future, he might want to take an Amtrak train somewhere. It must be nice.
I would love to be able to take my dog on the train. And honestly I don’t see the problem, a couple of engineers and a few local makers could solve this problem in a weekend.
Take an empty car. Divide it into thirds: one third for baggage, one third for bicycles, and the front third 2 – 6 caged seating cubicles with doors. Charge extra for the caged seat, but you can bring your dog on board through the door of the baggage/bike/pet car and you sit with the dog in the cage with contains a rubberized mat of the floor and rubberized seat coverings, all the rest is steel, easy to clean. Separated from other passengers, contained, and you make the bike people happy. Put this car on the end of the train. Make a rule that one passenger must remain with the animal at all times.
Of course then the FRA would come in and make that cost $3M a car. And you’d have to study the design for 3 years and pay six figures to consultants…. Who I want to defund is the FRA.
Of course, I said I’d love to take my dog on the train…. but I’d prefer – much much more than that – to have the train run more than once a day.