ony need to be based fairness for all. we recognize that people all across this country continue to struggle and have their challenges. we want to ensure that laws are written and implemented to provide that fairness for all, whether it is moms, dads, seniors, young people, small business owners trying to find their way forward. we in the house remained committed to being part of a solution to working in a bipartisan fashion to find those commonsense ways to make sure we are doing what is good and right for america. >> i can take a couple of questions. >> mr. speaker, the changes in your bill for the president's health care law are relatively minor. were they worth a two-week government shutdown? >> we are working with our members. >> can you guarantee that congress will not push us into default? >> listen, i have made clear for months and months that the idea of default is wrong and we shouldn't get anywhere close to it. vote --ou going to making changes to the senate bill? >> we are talking with other members on both sid

i wanted to address something else in terms of ridership onis pretty good ridership the long-distance trains, when you consider the fact that especially our western trains, we're talking about over 2000 miles of travel from one into the other. we provide a service where somebody, for example, in the middle of the country that might have children that live on the west coast, or the east coast, can get there from the middle of the country. if they don't have a car or aviation -- you see that the assistance and aviation are abandoning smaller communities -- amtrak is there. we see those small businesses growing in those communities across this country. there is not the number of people there are on the 2 coasts but we tied together. safety is your top priority. how safe is rail travel? guest: the safest way to travel. -- the fraok administrator -- we see continued reduction in the number of accidents and evenents in this country, crossing accidents, which are particularly problematic for railroads, because people do theate and go around barriers and some of those kinds of things. we have