In the battle over the comparative pennies that can be saved by cutting non-entitlement spending in the federal budget, Republicans lawmakers have returned to a familiar bogeyman: transportation subsidies.

From a renewed attack on high-profile targets like Amtrak to a new assault on low-profile local mass-transit grants to a sudden focus on a relic from the regulated era of air travel, Republicans have declared war on the nation's already-creaky transportation infrastructure. If the GOP gets its way, the United States will be forced to confront its post-war decision to stress private cars and air travel over all other means of moving travelers around the nation.

Make no mistake. Republicans have nothing as grandiose as a national transit reappraisal in mind. They're looking for stray budget lines to kill in a desperate attempt to match their pre-election rhetoric to the realities of governing. Still, the Republican tactics do offer business travelers of every political stripe the opportunity to think about how we approach the nation's mass-transit needs.

The granular details of the Republican budget plan were released last month in the aptly named Spending Reduction Act of 2011. Of the $2.5 trillion in 10-year cuts contained in the measure proposed by Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, less than $6.5 billion annually involved transportation subsidies. That paltry number underlines the claims of mass-transit advocates that, if anything, the nation spends too little on transportation initiatives.

Amtrak Agonistes Redux

The most interesting bit of eye candy in Jordan's bill is the elimination of the $1.5 billion annual subsidy for Amtrak, the government-owned passenger rail service that largely runs on tracks owned by private cargo railroads. Amtrak is a perennial GOP target. Republican presidents dating back to Reagan have tried to eliminate its subsidies. And it was President George W. Bush's 2005 attempt to kill Amtrak funding that led to the current law that supports the railroad on a longer-term, rather than year-by-year, basis.

Without rehashing issues we covered several years ago, Amtrak's problem is simple: It loses money—upwards of $30 a passenger on average. And it does so partially because Amtrak's Congressional supporters demand it retain the fiction of a "national" service rather than focus on high-demand routes in crowded urban corridors where it might actually make money.

Depending on how you do the math, Amtrak actually turns a profit in the East Coast corridor between Boston and Washington. That's where the relatively high-speed Acela train is an appealing alternative to the costly airline shuttles, crowded airports, and TSA security hassles.

Yet because of political realities, Amtrak continues to run routes such as the Sunset Limited. Until Hurricane Katrina, the train ran between Los Angeles and Florida, but it now terminates in New Orleans. Like many long-haul routes that essentially serve vacation travelers, however, the Sunset Limited consistently loses more than $250 a passenger.

The chances of Amtrak actually losing its subsidy this year are small. Which means we won't be thinking rationally about our "national" rail needs anytime soon. A prime example: The Obama Administration announced on Tuesday that it wanted to spend $53 billion over the next six years to build a national, high-speed intercity rail network.

Introduced by Vice President Joe Biden, a longtime Amtrak fan, the plan probably has no chance of passage. Partially because Americans don't seem to have an appetite for new infrastructure projects. Partially because we don't have the money for new spending proposals. And partially because Americans have shown very little interest in a "national" rail network when they can fly to the distant parts of the country far more quickly.

Mass-Transit Mashups

Two other programs on Jordan's chopping block cover a combined $4.5 billion for local and regional mass-transit initiatives. One program, the $2 billion New Starts Transit, is aimed at jump-starting new transportation options in metropolitan areas. The other, the High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program, is a $2.5 billion plan to help states create or extend next-generation rail service in busy travel corridors. (President Obama directly referenced this program in his State of the Union address several days after Jordan's bill was announced.)

Both programs have drawbacks, of course, not least of which are the heavy federal burdens imposed on what should be local and regional transit initiatives. A huge chunk of the money that should be going to bricks, mortar, and track instead goes to the sometimes-infuriating process of getting the funding and meeting federal strictures.

Go to the next page to read about the last vestige of air regulation, as well as the impact of $100-a-barrel crude oil prices on travelers.