Asking President Bush to Please Sign His Amtrak Tickets

I purchased 8 gift tickets for President George W. Bush in late March, 2006, to demonstrate the hypocrisy and selective enforcement of a bad law passed in 2005 that denies Amtrak subsidy money on any route where the lowest fare is less than half of the highest fare. The law was written with the intent of nearly doubling the fares that daily job commuters had to pay on the Northeast Corridor. That amounted to about $5,000+ for most commuters, relative to the start of 2005, and drove so many people off of Amtrak trains on the Northeast Corridor that total commuter revenue was flat or down, despite the increase, and every state on the Northeast Corridor from Connecticut to Maryland saw a decrease in total Amtrak riders in 2006, despite rising gasoline prices which were fueling large increases in Amtrak ridership elsewhere in the country. Many people had to quit their jobs or move out of state to keep their jobs.

Despite ample warnings and time to comply with the law, which took full effect on March 1, 2006, Amtrak continued to violate the letter of the law after March 1 in parts of their fare structure other than Northeast Corridor commuters. So I bought President Bush tickets sold in violation of the law -- group tickets sold as low as 90% off full fare -- to demonstrate the hypocrisy of selective enforcement against job commuters, throwing people trying to get to work off the trains, while still selling cheap joy rides to others. If President Bush chose to enforce the law, he could bankrupt Amtrak, which had actually been the administration's proposal for the 2006 fiscal year, before Congress chose to override his zero budget for Amtrak support and keep the trains running. The law that kicked off commuters was probably just intended as a preparatory step to shutting down the railroad and handing train operations to private interests (and infrastructure support, a major burden, to the states).

Presidnt Bush's tickets from Washington, DC, to New York, NY, cost just $6.30 each. And I have six others for Washington-Philadelphia, Philadelphia-New York, and COrnwells Heights-New York.

Cornwells Heights was my commuting station in Pennsylvania, just 65 minutes from Manhattan by Amtrak trains. It has lost 70% of its ridership since the year the law blasting commuters off the rails was passed.

In this video I simply ask President Bush to sign his tickets for charity, pointing out as well that he can choose to punish Amtrak financially for issuing those tickets, or, preferably, take the stance that the law should be declared invalid. I'd like to see people able to get to work again on this nation's railroad. It worked for about a hundred years in America's Northeast, until it got broken by the bad law passed in 2005.

Should President Bush sign the tickets so I can sell them for charity, the proceeds will be donated to the folks who used to own the Cornwells Heights station's land -- Saint Katharine Drexel's Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, whose convent overlooks the station. Saint Katharine herself lies in her shrine just a hundred yards or so from the station. And a hundred years ago, she and her order cared for and educated Blacks and Native Americans throughout America when no one else would. The station was her home base and means of transportation to her many and varied missions throughout America. I'll be glad to pay Saint Katharine and her order homage with the donation.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• President
• George
• Bush
• Amtrak
• sign
• tickets
• Northeast
• Corridor
• Saint
• Katharine
• Drexel
• rail
• trains

[railmogul2]

have you considered writing him a letter aksing him to sign it?

[dc3rdrail]

Yes, I wrote to President Bush at the White House in 2006, pointing out the devastation of the Northeast Corridor, the existence of his tickets, and making the request that he sign them for charity. But I never received a response.

The ability to ignore people is actually a powerful political technique for dealing with adversaries or opponents or agendas one disagrees with. I've put the request for President Bush to sign his tickets on YouTube to make the request harder to ignore.

[sam92695]

my friend bush is the president hes not going to care just for one man and his day is omost off so i am sorry for u

[Puzzoozoo]

Save your breath, Bush doesn't care as he knows he'll be gone in a few months.

[49er323]

good luck. you make a lot of sensible reasoning (going green, saving money...to...i don't know...spend and stimulate the economy); so I'm sure bush will ignore you :(

good luck though!