Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) on Wednesday night slammed House Republicans who voted to cut funding for Amtrak a few hours after a deadly train accident in Philadelphia.
Rendell told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that the House Appropriations Committee debate over transportation funding was “pathetic.”
“Here, less than 12 hours after seven people died, these SOBs, and that’s all I can call them, these SOBs didn’t even have the decency to table the vote,” he said.
Hayes, who said he was playing devil’s advocate, pressed Rendell, asking why the accident should influence a vote on the budget.
Rendell said that Republicans’ “policy is terrible.”
“This country used to have the world’s best infrastructure,” he continued.
Rendell then recalled testifying about transportation funding in Congress while he was governor of Pennsylvania.
“Senator Shelby said, ‘Well governor, you’re asking us to subsidize Amtrak.’ I said, ‘Senator, there isn’t a rail system in the world that isn’t subsidized,'” Rendell said. “What are these guys smoking?”
Reports indicate that the before the Amtrak train derailed and crashed on Tuesday night, the train was traveling at about 107 miles per hour as it approached a curve with a speed limit of only 50 miles per hour.
Watch the clip via MSNBC:
H/t Raw Story