There's nothing personal about it.
Istook made it clear that if reps wanted Amtrak funding it would count as part or all of their transportation allotment. The reps went ahead and chose Amtrak and their only defense is that they "didn't believe" Istook would follow through. Well, he's on honest guy, and he followed through.
The reps got most of the Amtrak funding they wanted and lost most of the other projects they wanted. Sounds fair to me!
"There's nothing personal about it.
Istook made it clear that if reps wanted Amtrak funding it would count as part or all of their transportation allotment. The reps went ahead and chose Amtrak and their only defense is that they "didn't believe" Istook would follow through. Well, he's on honest guy, and he followed through.
The reps got most of the Amtrak funding they wanted and lost most of the other projects they wanted. Sounds fair to me!"
That is a blatant lie. Many of these districts don't have ANY Amtrak service. For example, Amtrak doesn't serve the 5th district (Scott Garrett, R) of New Jersey. The nearest stop is in Newark, which is 20-30 miles away. Likewise, it doesn't serve the 2nd district of New Jersey (LoBiondo, R)
These lawmakers signed a letter supporting Amtrak as a matter of ideology, and now are being punished for it. They didn't submit any "transportation prioritization" list for their districts.