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Cutting gov't to pre-Coolidge like levels isn't on the national radar, so promoting a candidate with rollback in mind isn't going to get you far, except a few pats on the back from DC based think tanks and their supporters.

I'm all for the pragmatic incremental approach, but consider that we're now three years into a Republican administration that has the Senate and House behind it, and We've still got Amtrak! Amtrak!

They're not even trying.

I'm all for the pragmatic incremental approach, but consider that we're now three years into a Republican administration that has the Senate and House behind it, and We've still got Amtrak! Amtrak!

They're not even trying.

Whoa whoa whoa. When/how did the President--as a candidate--say he would cut AMTRAK? How big a priority should eliminating AMTRAK be on the President's "to do" list? But, lest we think the President loves the status quo on the boondoggle that is AMTRAK, let us look at the Bush plan to MOVE AMTRAK to a "privatized", for-profit plan:

MACOMB - Directly following a proposal to increase fiscal year 2004 funding to the levels requested by the Bush administration comes the president's proposal for revamping inter-city rail service - let the states do it.

Transportation secretary Norman Mineta submitted to the Congress a three-step plan to create private passenger rail companies that would operate trains under contract to states and multi-state compacts much in the same way Amtrak currently operates trains under contract to commuter rail agencies.

The Passenger Rail Investment Reform Act of 2003 would also create a private rail "hardware" company to maintain and operate the infrastructure on the Northeast Corridor contractually for a multi-state Northeast Corridor Compact.

source URL: http://www.macombjournal.com/articles/2003/08/01/news/news6.txt