Dubya Strikes Again!

What if you couldn’t find out until some time in November what your household income would be for next year? It could be the same … it might increase by 5 percent … or it could be reduced by 40 percent. How the hell could you plan for anything??

You couldn’t, of course, but that’s exactly what Amtrak has had to deal with for the past 20-plus years.

But wait! A bill that would provide the first serious, meaningful, long-term funding for Amtrak will be coming to the House floor tomorrow. It’s H.R. 6003, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act.

It would authorize more than $14 billion over the next five years and includes a provision for matching funds that states could use to start new rail service or expand and improve existing service.

The timing couldn’t be better, because the airlines are cutting back on flights or going out of business, the price of gasoline is headed for five bucks, and people all across the country are turning to rail in droves for vacations and for their daily commutes.

And today our peerless leader, George W. Bush (photo, left), threatened to veto this legislation if it comes to his desk!

He says he wants more accountability from Amtrak – whatever the hell that means – and he complains that there isn’t enough in the bill to encourage “competition on existing Amtrak routes.”

Are you kidding me? Amtrak was created in the first place because the private rail companies couldn’t make passenger service pay. And today’s freight railroads wouldn’t touch passenger service with a 100-foot pole.

Trust our prez to pick just the right moment to make exactly the wrong decision. Again!

Note: I usually illustrate these posts with photographs I scrounge from the Internet. There are plenty of photos of Bush out there, of course, but I thought it too offensive to use one that made him look like a baboon. And I just couldn’t bring myself to use one of the decent ones. So instead of a photo of our president, you get an empty space instead … which, when you stop and think about it, is rather appropriate.