Democrats should be mourning victims of the deadly Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia instead of attacking Republicans for voting to slash the national railroad's budget, Rep. Lee Zeldin tells
Newsmax TV.
"[There's] the saying that you never let a tragedy go to waste. This is a first, though," Zeldin, a New York Republican, said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
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"I can't think of a time where somebody was blaming a potential future cut in funding to something that happened in the past and it's bizarre."
Hours after Northeast Regional Train 188, which travels between Washington, D.C., and New York, derailed near Philadelphia — an accident being blamed on excessive speed — House Republicans voted to cut about a fifth of Amtrak's budget.
At a House subcommittee meeting on transportation and housing spending, Zeldin's New York Democratic counterpart, Rep. Steve Israel, said Congress had "failed to invest" in Amtrak's safety.
"Last night we failed them … It's not just our trains, it is our bridges that are failing. It is our highways that are crowded and filled with potholes. It is our runways at our airports," Israel said.
But Zeldin said Israel and his fellow Democrats have their priorities skewed in blaming future cuts on the Amtrak tragedy.
"The train was traveling over twice the speed limit, the fact that it was going 106, 107 miles per hour, beyond human error and recklessness," Zeldin said.
"Unfortunately for congressional Democrats … instead of spending the next day in mourning and keeping in our thoughts and prayers those who were critically injured, those who lost their lives, thinking about their families … they start blaming a potential future funding cut as to why lives were lost in the past.
"It might be unprecedented, it's bizarre to me."
The Amtrak train crashed at about 9:10 p.m. Tuesday while rounding a curve after leaving Penn Station in Philadelphia.
The locomotive was traveling at 106 mph and hit the turn at 102 mph, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday after a preliminary investigation.
Eight people died and more than 200 were injured.