Understanding Government

Last year the Federal Railroad Administration gave Illinois $133 million to construct a rail bridge in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood in order to eliminate “thousands of hours of delays each year for Metra and Amtrak riders.” This year, though, that money has been cut in the U.S. House’s just-passed budget, reports the Chicago Tribune’s Jon Hilkevitch. Hilkevitch writes that the cut has “nothing to do with the merits of the project” but instead is about House Republicans’ pledge to reduce domestic spending. Illinois’ Dick Durbin, the no 2. Democrat in the Senate, goes a step farther and calls the lost bridge money a “mindless cut.”