Cantor Caught Celebrating High-Speed Rail After Ridiculing It

While the stimulus was being debated in January, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor called a group of reporters into his office to outline the GOP's objections. As we filed in, we walked past a giant poster ridiculing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for allegedly pushing for high-speed rail connecting Disneyland and Las Vegas.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," Cantor called that project an example of "waste and pork-barrel spending."

Yet one man's pork is another man's prudent investment in transit -- and sometimes the same man's.

Asked about high-speed rail at a recent local event in Virginia, Cantor was all thumbs up. "If there is one thing that I think all of us here on both sides of the political aisle from all parts of the region agree with, it's that we need to do all we can to promote jobs here in the Richmond area," Cantor said of the high-speed rail.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch goes on to report that Cantor "said bringing high-speed rail to the region could further spur economic development, creating as many as 185,000 jobs and bringing $21.2 billion to a region already home to about a half-dozen Fortune 500 companies and 20,000 small businesses."

For Cantor, however, not all high-speed rail is equal, and the Richmond-D.C. project is distinct from Reid's because it is on a list of Department of Transportation-planned corridor projects.

"I'm shocked that that the DNC Chairman, Governor Tim Kaine, would order or tolerate these kind of attacks against the Virginia high speed rail and Democrat Bobby Scott. This is the same old Washington that people have grown sick of and the President campaigned against," said Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring.

He offered the map below of proposed high-speed rail lines to make the case. The map was produced during the stimulus debate by the White House to back up its push for high-speed rail.

Rail - Free Legal Forms

Ryan Grim is the author of the forthcoming book This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America

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Comments

[zeusjay]

Remember his wife is a board member on the Richmond Times Dispatch, she also serves as an excutive of a bank that has received millions of dollars to "help" ignite loans. His family are major players in the real estate game. thus all he does is helping the Cantors continue to amass a fortune.

[Matthew Benzor 1]

FLIP FLOP FLIP FLOP FLIP FLOP this character looks like a fish out of water with all the flip floping he's doing.

[Mahi Joe]

LOL good analogy.

[zeusjay]

Remeber his wife is a Board Member with the Richmond newspaper and also an executive with a bank that has received big dollars from the stimulus plan. He is not representative of the people of Virginia.

[iluvnews44]

Listening to this guy is like nails on a chalkboard. What a dork!

[AgentMacGyver]

This clown is the golden boy of the Republican party. That's good news.

[clearlythinking]

They just make me shake my head. Words do this no justice.

[Peabodies]

The map shows broken spaghetti spurs. Why not a whole country grid? Oh I see, the pieces couldn't be kept in private hands. Back to the age of the railroad moguls. That was a fine era ... NOT! Look around the world. Most countries either have a whole country railroad grid, or none at all (Mexico for example). What's holding us up?

As for Cantor, he's shown himself to be irrelevant on this issue!

[NCRedhead]

Not all are as big as we are and you have to start somewhere...to me, just getting this much done is a huge step.

[futate01]

Rail only makes sense for medium distances and in areas with dense populations. The Midwest is just too sparsely populated and the distances are just too great, unless they can make an elevated maglev train that can travel at 300 to 400 mph.

[RenoSage]

WHY NOT? Might as well go big.
We remember Eisenhower for initiating the Interstate Highway System.
Fast Rail throughout the USA would be a memorable achievement for a country going GREEN.

[totaldisbelief]

Yet one more GOP idiot.

[lynnn]

Cantor needs to go back to watching Britney Spears concerts.

[DubyaGump]

Eric lay off the miss clairol, your haircolor looks unnatural.

[roblabrousse]

I don't know ..but this guy has got mores sides to his mouth than a geodesic dome has panels. He's mealy mouth and so is the rest of him. He's the walking, talking personification of effete.

[jnratliff]

republicans the only fact I know about reepublicans is that republican = insanity@!

[Harmony1812]

Standard Operating Procedure for Republicants. Say one thing and do the opposite.

[YLS2007]

I don't know if calling this twerp a sock puppet is a greater insult to socks or puppets?

[roblabrousse]

Sock puppets are likable he's not. He's just plain old scuz.

[progressivelady]

the broken party is so confused they just don't know who they are anymore, I Love it, I thank shrub's for the last 8 miserable year's.