Facts:
1. Strong Amtrak Links
Biden even has a family connection to Amtrak. His younger son, Hunter, is a lobbyist and the vice chairman of Amtrak's board of directors.
"Rail-Riding Biden Is a Strong Backer Of Amtrak in Senate"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/01/AR2008090102391.html
2. Senator's renting cost is NOT expensable in DC and it is NOT cheap. Some senators rented a basement for $600/month and got hammered.
"How and Where Our Representatives in D.C. live"
http://www.startribune.com/politics/23999229.html
3. Biden's Daily-$200-plus-commuting-expense is paid by the tax-payers.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/expend_detail.php?cid=N00001669&excode=A10&cycle=2008&page=8
Comments:
It is one thing to make an economic choice based on your level of income and life-style preference; it is another to politically profit from a practical choice.
Senator Biden was praised for his 20 years' Acela-riding for two points:
1. keeping him in touch with real people and working class roots;
2. the human touch emmitting from the claimed intention of being with his kids after his wife passed away in an accident.
I found both unrooted.
Anybody who had experience of riding Acela knows how riduculous the first point is: the Acela folks are anything but "working class". You want to get in touch with "real people"? Go take a grey hound, go take a Chinatown bus!
And about the second point, putting the warm-and-fuzzy stuff aside, isn't the Acela commuting costing him precious 3 being-with-kids-hours per day compared with moving to DC?
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