This item appears in The Peach State Xpress, the excellent newsletter of the Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers (website: www.garprail.org) which is edited by Jim Dexter.

It is being reprinted here as it is a good appraisal of the candidates' positions as they currently stand.

Political positions, of course, can change! Now-Presidential candidate Rick Santorum used to support Amtrak funding-- when he was up for reelection as a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. Check out this 2006 TV ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHT6SJd2KFg

All of this is another reminder of why rail supporters need to speak up-- and vote!-- regardless of their political party affiliation.

--Jackson McQuigg

TRAINS, TRANSIT AND PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

Georgia holds its presidential primary on March 6. Republicans will be able to choose between Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum, but for train and transit supporters, it may be difficult to choose a favorite. Two of the candidates--Romney and Santorum--have vowed to eliminate federal funding for Amtrak as a budget-cutting move, even though Amtrak accounts for just 0.05% of federal spending. Paul once suggested that Amtrak was a symptom of an "increasingly fascist America". The GOP candidates have been relatively silent about transit funding, but Gingrich recently referred to subway riders as "elites", raising the question of whether Gingrich-- a former Georgia congressman-- has ever in his life been on MARTA. President Obama will be the only candidate on the Democratic ballot. In his 2013 budget recommendations, Obama proposes spending $6 billion on passenger rail and $2.2 billion on transit, but those proposals have run into heavy Republican opposition.