Boehner: ‘Stupid’ to say Amtrak funding cuts caused crash

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday it was “stupid” to ask about Democrats’ assertions that GOP cuts to Amtrak funding might have caused this week’s deadly train derailment in Philadelphia.

“Are you really going to ask such a stupid question?” Boehner interjected after a reporter began asking him about transportation funding cuts.

{mosads}Democrats, he said, “started this yesterday. It’s all about funding. It’s all about funding. Well, obviously it’s not about funding.”

Instead, Boehner pointed out the train was traveling around a curve at more than 100 miles per hour, more than twice the speed limit.

“Adequate funds were there,” he said, adding that no money has been cut from rail-safety programs. 

House Democrats howled on Wednesday after GOP appropriators voted to set federal funding for Amtrak at $1.14 billion in the next fiscal year, down from $1.39 billion. And they implied that inadequate funding for Amtrak contributed to the Philadelphia derailment.

Boehner pushed back hard on that argument.

“It’s hard for me to imagine that people take the bait of some of the nonsense that gets spewed around here,” he said.