December 16, 2004
Dear Mr. Bush,
The anxiety coarsing through everyone's mind--will they or won't they--was palpable today on the train. For the last few months, the transit authority has been threatening to cut service to trains and busses by twenty percent, and today was the day they were going to vote on whether to enact it. The line I live off of would stop running twenty-four hours a day; many parts of the city that the trains don't reach would see their bus service dramatically reduced. Every rider, every day, would feel the effect of a cut as deep as the one proposed. And so today, on the train, you could feel the worry coursing through the car. As each stop was announced, more people would get on, and the group anxiety would increase, everyone knowing of the very real possibility of a few weeks from now having to pay a lot more for the ride or that the ride may not be there at all.
And then tonight, Mr. Bush, the transit board announced that they would simply wait until July, wait for some magical money to appear and fill the gaping hole in their budget. It's money that has to come from somewhere, and our state is already deeply in dept, like so many have become since you enacted your tax cuts. And so, like so much else in the last four years, the burden will be carried by those of us that can least afford it.
It's what we do, Mr. Bush: We carry your debt. Whether it's through paying more for a ride downtown, or with our lives on the battlefield, we carry your load. We may not complain about it all that much, but we will never forget.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
Dan
The anxiety coarsing through everyone's mind--will they or won't they--was palpable today on the train. For the last few months, the transit authority has been threatening to cut service to trains and busses by twenty percent, and today was the day they were going to vote on whether to enact it. The line I live off of would stop running twenty-four hours a day; many parts of the city that the trains don't reach would see their bus service dramatically reduced. Every rider, every day, would feel the effect of a cut as deep as the one proposed. And so today, on the train, you could feel the worry coursing through the car. As each stop was announced, more people would get on, and the group anxiety would increase, everyone knowing of the very real possibility of a few weeks from now having to pay a lot more for the ride or that the ride may not be there at all.
And then tonight, Mr. Bush, the transit board announced that they would simply wait until July, wait for some magical money to appear and fill the gaping hole in their budget. It's money that has to come from somewhere, and our state is already deeply in dept, like so many have become since you enacted your tax cuts. And so, like so much else in the last four years, the burden will be carried by those of us that can least afford it.
It's what we do, Mr. Bush: We carry your debt. Whether it's through paying more for a ride downtown, or with our lives on the battlefield, we carry your load. We may not complain about it all that much, but we will never forget.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
Dan
posted by Sinker at 11:29 PM
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