In other words if the election were tomorrow, who would ya'll vote for solely as related to Amtrak funding?

George dubya Bush or JOHN F KERRY

My choice was Kerry because I figured that anyone would be better than this administration. Following up on this, I went to johnkerry.com and search rail travel and amidst a bunch of un rail related mess, I picked out that he did support passenger rail to rural communities( I thought this to be refering to Long-distance trains, which I think to be the best anyway).

Amtrak funding ends up in the "Omnibus Spending bill' that covers everything from Amtrak to a grant for a study of catfish mating habits ("they do it"). Because the President does not have line-item veto power, he must veto the entire spending bill if he is to "axe" some item therein.

This is not the place for our individual politics, but while the door is open Mr. Norman's analysis applies to many, many other
items which will be presented by politicians
as what they would do. And they will almost aall be in this omninbus spending bill.

Unfortunetly too young to vote.

Concerning Amtrak, given his home base and orientation, we can anticipate that the only thing paid for anything beyond the northeast corridor would probably be lip service. When you lear that to the northeasterner Ohio is "midwest" you realize how small their view of the country is. Ask, "If Ohio is midwest, then what is Iowa and Nebraska?" and see if you even get an answer. His small town service is probably in western Massachusetts.

Look into some of the sources of information that do not like Kerry for some differences in viewpoints. There are a lot of things about him that do not look good in daylight. Frankly, I did not like what I saw in him when he first hit the national stage, and my opinion of him has done nothing but go down since then.

An aquaintence of mine who is on the NARP board says Kerry is strongly supportive of Amtrak. I would, however, like to see Kerry's voting record to confirm that.

As for Kerry in general, going OT here, I find him to be a thoughtful man who really looks deep into the issues and considers all sides before taking action. He may support an item if it is well thought out, but when presented with a similar item that is poorly though out he will vote against it. For that he is labeled as a "flip-flopper." I don't agree with him on everything, there's no such thing as a perfect candidate, but I do trust him to use good judgement.

But what do I know? Most of what I know about John Kerry I learned from C-SPAN, not Faux.

First, Mr. Kairho, I believe you got the process reversed. Legislation gets introduced in either legislative chamber (House or Senate), and gets passed. The same Legislation (either concurrently or subsequently) gets introducted in the other chamber and passed.

After a confernce between the two chambers, the differences are compromised and the legislation is then returned to each chamber to be passed again.

Only at such time that the two chambers have passed identical bills is such submitted to the President who will either "vote up" (sign) or "vote down" (veto) the legislation.

I realize this primer is as simplistic as is the script of the movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", but it is how it works!!!

Now where you do have a point is that the President, simply by grace of the office he (maybe SHE in '08) holds, holds the "bully pulpit" and can appeal directly to the people with any of his objectives (domestic legislation, foreign policy, appointments, etc). A popular President, such as Bill Clinton, could "reach to the the people" with his legislative agenda and even though Congress (both chambers) were controled by the opposition during his entire two terms, he was reasonably effective in having his agenda enacted.

Regretably, I cannot forsee regardless of who wins this November, hearing on TV the announcer intoning "From the Oval Office, Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States....

"John Kerry understands that revitalizing rural communities requires capital, infrastructure, and technology....He has supported rural transportation initiatives that would expand Amtrak’s service to more of America’s rural cities and towns."

I have been surprised to hear the comment, from some fairly intelligent people, "it doesn't matter who the next president will be." Nothing could be further from the truth.

From stem cell research to Amtrak to going to Mars, the President helps set the tone for the future simply by expressing his opinion from his "bully pulpit."

If Bush was not president, we probably would not be 1) involved in Iraq 2) arresting the development of stem cell research and 3) starving Amtrak to death.

But I don't mean to sound partisan here. Some of Amtrak's greatest friends were probably Republican. Afterall, if it were not for Richard Nixon, Amtrak might not even exist. And history shows that Jimmy Carter was one of Amtrak's biggest foes.

Even history has played a part in Amtrak's survival. The horror of 9/11 helped insure Amtrak's survival because when all the planes were grounded, the trains were running on schedule.

My understanding of the facts are that the Bush administration is no friend of Amtrak.

Bush has called for the privitization of passenger rail service and the elimination of long-haul lines. Bush nominated a man to oversee transportation (Mineta) that appears to be no friend of passenger rail. Bush has proposed a 2005 budget for Amtrak that has been called by David Gunn, a "shut down number."

Frankly, I don't understand how David Gunn has managed to survive as President of Amtrak in the Bush Administration. The fact that he has not been fired is one of the few good things the Bush Administration has done for our pasenger rail service.

I don't want this to turn into a polical discussion, but I also feel it necessary to point out that large cuts in Amtrak service only have occurred twice since 1971 -- 1980 and 1995 -- and in both cases, the president was a Democrat.

That having been said, the Bush administration seems to have no coherent policy on transportation in general and rail in particular. I decried the policy vacuum at the Federal Railroad Administration when Clinton was president. The bad news is that, under Bush, nothing has changed. Alan Rutter -- a competent, thoughtful administrator -- went back to Texas because nobody at the White House ever asked his opinion on anything. Such pronouncements as the Bush administration has made about Amtrak were made without consulting anyone at FRA!

I also have a whole slew of other--and larger--reasons why I think the current administration has to go.

I used to be a Republican myself, so I sympathize with those of you who have not made the change. But I urge you to investigate further.

Not that I am so enamored of Kerry. But I will hold my nose and vote for him, no question.

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Originally posted by sojourner:
I used to be a Republican myself....

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