Bill Bennett: “I am about to do something I have been warned is unwise, and that is to enter into debate and ask questions without…”

“I am about to do something I have been warned is unwise, and that is to enter into debate and ask questions without knowing in advance what my position will be. I do this in the hope I might learn something, but I realize I might get caught. It is with some trepidation I do this. I say to the Senator from Delaware, first, in the spirit of full disclosure, I am sure he does not know this. I would plead guilty. I am the lobbyist in the Nixon administration who was responsible for convincing the Congress to create Amtrak in the first place. I worked as a head lobbyist for John Volpe of the Department of Transportation. My final assignment in the Nixon administration was to convince the Congress to create Amtrak. In the process of convincing the Congress, I remember saying to the appropriate chairmen of the appropriate committees that Congress only has to subsidize Amtrak for a few years, that within 3 and certainly no more than 4, Amtrak would become a profitmaking corporation, stand alone, based on the projections that were then being made for the use of train service. Then political reality set in after the bill was passed.”