I would just to comment on the proposed cuts in Amtrak funding ("State proposes Amtrak cuts" SN 6/23). Personally, I think that the state would do the people of Michigan a great disservice by cutting the funding to the train lines, and by not going far enough in selling off these crumbling assets.

Amtrak has been losing money since the 1970s, yet the government props it up at great expense to the taxpayer, and to our liberty. Trains are the cause of many fatal accidents across the nation, and right here in our great state, such as the one which killed Meghann Pouch in my hometown of Charlotte.

It has been more than a year since her and her mother Melanie's death at the train tracks in Charlotte and the trains are not getting any safer. The cause of their deaths was a railroad gate malfunction, which led the train to slam into their car. By cutting the money for safety of the trains and not handing the heavily subsidized industry over to more capable hands, the government is just begging for more money to be thrown away and more people to get killed. In closing, trains don't kill people, governments do.

Neil Vitale
political science and economics senior