Amtrak Crosses Another Perils-of-Pauline Bridge?

[Vogon_Glory]

According to the National Association of Railroad Passengers,
President George W. Bush signed HR 2764, a consolidated
spending bill that authorized $1.325 billion for 2008. The
House measure still provides less operating subsidies than
Amtrak wanted.

http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php/hotline/more/hotline_533/

It looks like Grover Norqist and others of his sort will have
to go another year without having Amtrak's pelt on their wall.
For those of us who are old enough to remember the size and
scope of the US passenger rail net, today's Amtrak system is
but a thin tracing of the passenger rail service that was
available as late as the mid-1960's, when there were direct
passenger trains from Dallas to Denver and Dallas to
Minneapolis--St. Paul, not to mention the Salt Lake City--Los
Angeles, Salt Lake City--Portland/Seattle trains Amtrak
offered into the hostile Reagan era.

On the other hand, as long as GW Bush is in the White House,
no government program is truly safe from partisan ideologues'
meddling and is probably at risk until well after an incoming
Democratic administration starts going through the
bureaucracies and sacking the partisan appointees.

[nxylas]

1. On John McCain's Wikipedia page, it says...

...that McCain is opposed to any federal spending on Amtrak, regarding it as a pork-barrel project. One more reason to vigorously oppose a McCain presidency (as if there weren't enough).

[Vogon_Glory]

2. On the Other Hand, Dubya Bush Planned

On the other hand, I remember reading interesting rumors about how Buckaroo Bush was planning to hand off what Amtrak real estate assets he could to some of the GOP's corporate cronies if he succeeded in shutting it down.

I know McCain is another Amtrak enemy. So is the junior Senator from Texas.

What we need to do is get some of the forward-looking people to take a slightly more realistic look at the future and realize that high-speed rail is the most likely practical intercity transportation, not the monorails we saw on the Jetsons cartoons.