Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he regrets that several states with Republican governors rejected the billions of taxpayer dollars set aside by the economic stimulus bill of 2009 for high-speed rail and that most of the money went to California.
“My biggest regret was I got the president to put billions of dollars into the Recovery Act for high-speed rail,” Biden said during a speech addressing transportation and infrastructure spending.
Gov. Rick Scott, R-Fla., “turned … back” the funds, the vice president added. “He now wants it back, but he turned it back.”
Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, also “turned it back.”
But Gov. Jerry Brown, D-Calif.?
“He took it all,” Biden said, prompting laughter from his audience.
“And guess what?” the vice president added during his speech at an event hosted by the Washington Post. “Watch what’s going to happen in the next four years you’re going to see a high-speed rail system going directly from [Los Angeles] to Las Vegas, carrying hundreds of thousands of passengers.”
The future of the high-speed rail project linking Vegas to L.A. remains in doubt.
