there has been some griping over the course of the years, but eventually people came to and said we got to move this forward. what s really happened recently it s a very important point. a lot of these house republicans, they come from districts where amtrak plays no role. so essentially their entire model is it doesn t affect me i don t hear about it at home, i don t care about it, it s another big spend government boondoggle that we do not need. if you talk to republicans from the northeast, a lot of them push back on their more conservative counterparts and say hey, this actually matters a lot to us. so it s something that should be, in fact funded. what happened today is particularly striking. in march congress came together on a $1.4 billion re-authorization, the committee of jurisdiction actually agreed got 316 votes. however, because of the caps put in place by the sequester, by the budget dating back to 2011 alex, the appropriations committee essentially big footed the transpor