Jon S. Corzine: “I rise to reinforce some of the dialog we have had on the floor with regard to Amtrak. This is a major economic issue…”

“I rise to reinforce some of the dialog we have had on the floor with regard to Amtrak. This is a major economic issue for our Nation--not just the Northeast corridor. We have enormous numbers of interconnected elements of our economy which are dependent on the functioning of inner-city rail transportation, and certainly in the Northeast corridor where I come from, the most densely populated State in the Nation. There are almost 300,000 commuters a day using Amtrak or Amtrak-related facilities that move in and out of Penn Station and the New York metropolitan region. There are 82,000 daily commuters in New Jersey traffic. These folks are involved in the financial affairs of this Nation. We are going to create havoc in operations in our metropolitan regions of New York City if we have a shutdown of this highway transportation. I think it is absolutely essential that we get long-term Amtrak reform. What I want to speak about tonight is that we need not create a crisis with a short-term shutdown, which is going to impact an enormous number of innocent bystanders, to get to long-term reform. The President, the Transportation Department, and the Congress need to sit down and put together a long-term plan with regard to how we are going to reform Amtrak. I don't think it should be done at the expense of a part of our country that is already suffering. It would spread across the country and undermine the confidence of our already shaken economic expansion.”