The next time you merge onto Interstate 20, you can ponder upon what a good investment it was, about all the money it makes on a daily basis.

Huh?

No, you did not miss anything. The highways, of course, make no money at all. All they do is cost money, first to build, then to maintain, then to rebuild and expand, then to maintain again.

The money to do all this comes from taxes on gasoline and car sales and it is not enough money to do the job.

Only the most used highways get funding. Much is left undone.

The exception to this rule is the toll roads that dot both this state and country. Those roads do not actually "make" any money either, they simply pay for themselves — it is to be hoped — over a number of years. No road that we know of ever made a profit anywhere.

Instead, other companies make profits off highways, from the automobile companies — if you think sales are low now, think what they might be if there were no highways to drive on — to the thousands of trucking companies.

Don't get us wrong. We fully support a strong highway system. We not only need what we have, we probably need more. At least that is what the planners tell us and we are inclined to agree.

But we get irked about this every time a new report comes out about how much taxpayers "subsidize" the Amtrak rail system per rider.

We never hear how much taxpayers subsidize the highway system per driver.

As it turns out taxpayers spent about $32 per average Amtrak rider during 2008, over and above what the passenger was charged. That is about four times what Amtrak has estimated. However, the study that determined this estimate includes the depreciation amount, not just the revenue versus the expenses of normal operation. If that amount was not included, the costs would be much closer to the estimate.

The average rider number is a bit misleading, though. In the northeast corridor, the higher number of passengers means a much better operating scenario. In that area, Amtrak makes $41 per passenger. This is a healthy number.

But when you come to the Southern states, it gets a bit more problematic.

The Texas Eagle, the service which runs through Marshall, loses $141 per passenger, when depreciation is included. It loses $116 per passenger when that is not taken into account.

Much worse than that is the Sunset Limited, which runs from New Orleans to Los Angeles and must be subsidized to the amount of $462 per passenger.

Even at the higher rate, we would guess that it is still competitive with the total amount of subsidies per car one would rack up driving from New Orleans to Los Angeles. It is just a guess, however, because such a study has never been done and will likely never be done.

Those who oppose Amtrak will find as many ways as possible to attack it, but it is a vital transportation system to this country. Railways around the world are tough businesses to operate on a profit, but highways are not profitable either and we need them, too.