a thought about privatizing Amtrak

[tubaallen]

Alan, I agree with all that. Hope you didn't think I was arguing!

 

[AlanB]

Alan, I agree with all that. Hope you didn't think I was arguing!

Not at all, that big statement wasn't meant for you. Note my now edited text.

 

[Viewliner]

If the lobbyists could do better, then why not just put NARP on the payroll and let them do the lobbying? :unsure:

 

[tubaallen]

Alan---

Sweet...glad we're on the same page . And thanks for your understanding of the bullet train...I had always heard both answers, but that makes sense why. Just like the NEC....

Allen

 

[AlanB]

Amtrak's fiscal woes sometimes look very much like a Cinderella fairy tale. There are the two sisters -- highways and airlines -- who always know they're going to go to the ball. And year after year, Amtrak sits like Cinderella by the fireside, having to dream about getting a dress to wear.

The above quote comes from a TomPaine.com interview with James Repass President of the National Corridors Initiative (NCI). Thanks to Prodigy's On Track On Line for finding this story.

While in some sense I probably should have started a whole new topic for this interview; much of the interview talks about funding and lobbying, the same topic that we've been discussing in this post. Mr. Repass mentions some of the same things that I touched upon, with regard to the lobbyists in DC. The whole article at the above link is well worth the read and you can also listen to the interview if you have Realplayer installed on your computer.

Here's another very telling quote from the interview.

Every time a poll is taken, 70 to 80 percent say they favor a national system. But there's a disconnect between what the public wants and what the Congress responds to. The Congress responds to lobbyists and to interest groups that have lots of money and are well organized. The highway and the airline lobbies are terrifically organized. I had an executive of one lobbying outfit brag to me one day he could have every member of Congress telephoned twice in five minutes. That's 1,000 phone calls in five minutes if you add up the number of people in Congress on any issue that he chose to tell his lobbying arm to attack. Now that's enormous power.

 

[tubaallen]

Thanks for that link, Alan!