Then John Mica has the nerve to brag about the funding the stimulus package "might" create for Sun Rail:
“The total appropriation for transit systems includes $750 million for the New Starts program,” Mica said. “Nationally, the Central Florida Commuter Rail project is next in line for final approval and federal funding from the Federal Transit Administration.
“The timing couldn’t be better. All the project needs is the State Legislature’s approval of the CSX-Florida Department of Transportation liability agreement,” Mica said.
And apparently Mica has also had the gall to brag about the highspeed rail funding that was put into the stimulus bill by Senator Harry Reid. So lets get this straight,......again John Mica voted AGAINST this highspeed rail funding and then turns around to brag about the funding being in the stimulus plan:
Rep. John Mica was gushing after the House of Representatives voted Friday to pass the big stimulus plan.
"I applaud President Obama's recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America's future," the Florida Republican beamed in a press release.
Yet Mica had just joined every other GOP House member in voting against the $787.2 billion economic recovery plan.
Republicans echoed their party line over and over during the debate: "This bill is loaded with wasteful deficit spending on the majority's favorite government programs," as Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., put it.
How do you explain that?
Mike Steel, a spokesman for House GOP Leader John Boehner of Ohio, at first ducked when asked about Mica and Young issuing press releases praising the bill
they'd opposed.
"I don't work for Mica or Young," Steel said initially.
So there you have it Mica was for the rail spending, before he was against it, before he was for it....
You figure it out.
One thing is for sure,.....Mica is against creating jobs or he would have voted YES on the stimulus bill.
BTW John Mica and Don Young have been connected before on questionable earmark spending in the case of another famous transportation pet project: The Coconut Road Earmark