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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by O.S. Wuuuuhhh? Orchestrated by who? This isn't a dictatorship. The people voted for George Bush, AND they voted for a lot of congressmen and senators who consistently vote for Amtrak. They get all the government they vote for. My advice? Quit worrying about their plan. Worry about selling your own plan. OS [/quote] Much as I'm sure I'd like to,...*this* was not a step towards bashing Bush, at least on my part... I'm talking about the ruse of the expectation of Amtrak ever being self sufficient in the firstplace. After reading Don Phillips column in the mag these last few years, the conclusion I've drawn is that the initially proposed time line (for self sufficiency) was little more than a stall tactic, out of concern over the public outcry that would have resulted, had passenger rail been abruptly terminated back in the late 60's. Evidently the thinking was that a couple decades worth of "stall" would deaden the sting to the passenger rail faithful and die hard nostalgists, like some carnival nut shell game where the last shell is held down long enough in hopes that everyone would just leave rather that wait for the outcome... There never was a realistic hope for profitability, just as the crooked shell game artist has no pea under any of the shells. So, if a plan of equivalent legitimacy is all that you ask, how about this one: raise each fare sufficient to cover the cost of each passenger trip, and let market influances determine Amtraks fate. Then auction off the rubble left over after one year.
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