Not at all, that big statement wasn't meant for you. Note my now edited text.tubaallen said:Alan, I agree with all that. Hope you didn't think I was arguing!
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.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.
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.
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