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Lets be clear about this. It is not about Bu***rying to put in high speed rail. It is not about trying to save or kill Amtrak really. Bush needs to reduce the amounts spent each year and show the voters he is doing it if he is to pave the way for another Republican President which the people who supported him (and his father) want. So Bush is trying to zero out Amrak in the budget and remove the drain on funds in represents (which is very small in terms of the overall budget, but he wants to make an example of it) . So he doesn't alienate some pretty powerful Republican Senators and Congressmen he is offering as an alternative, transit matching money from the HIGHWAY TRUST FUND, paid by your gas taxes, not from the general budget which is funded by income taxes and various other taxes and tarriffs. Also, he reduces the cost to the Federal Government this way by requiring the States and localities to pay a 50% match to the Federal Funds. The effect of this is there is $1.8Billion annually he can use to retire debt instead of supporting Amtrak which he can use to fund tax cuts. That is how politics works in this case. LC
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