So now we have one of those Good News-Bad News deals. We'll do the good news first.In a rare bipartisan vote, last week the House voted to approve continued funding for Amtrak. The bill authorized $7.2 billion in support for passenger rail service over the next four years, of which some $5.6 billion, about $1.4 billion per year, would go to Amtrak.
The vote was 316 to 101, with all Dimcrats and a majority of GOPpers voting yes. Passage came after a attempt to strip all funding for Amtrak, a measure that would have killed national passenger rail service, was soundly defeated, 147 to 272.
Once again, the attempts to kill Amtrak - which by the way, was never supposed to survive; it was supposed to fail and has been systematically starved of investment from the get go - but the attempts to kill it have failed because even conservative GOPpers from some of the reddest of states know that Amtrak is their only reasonable means of long-distance transportation and their constituents know it.
Amtrak survives. That's Good News. So let's get on board.
Sources cited in links:
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150305/BLOGS02/150309888/all-aboard-house-votes-to-continue-funding-amtrak
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/fido-and-fluffy-may-be-your-amtrak-seatmates-under-house-measure
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/05/1368719/-Yesterday-House-Democrats-saved-Amtrak-proving-again-that-they-re-the-only-ones-governing
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2005/03/it-doesnt-take-much.html
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