Dems: Cantor a hypocrite on high-speed rail

Democrats are calling out Republican Whip Eric Cantor for what they claim is contradictory support of federal funding for high-speed rail in Virginia.

The funding would be part of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package — the same stimulus package Cantor vehemently opposed earlier this year.

“Cantor’s hypocrisy on high-speed rail reaches fever pitch,” said the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of House Democrats, in a release Monday.

The statement came in response to Cantor’s meeting last week with transportation officials on how Virginia could apply for stimulus grants to build the rail project along Interstate 95 from Washington, D.C., to Richmond.

Since April, the DCCC has put out at least a dozen releases accusing GOP congressional members of hypocrisy related to various issues.

This latest political spat involving Cantor — Culpeper’s congressman and the No. 2 Republican in the House — illustrates the usual divide between the two parties on the Hill as the GOP, now in the minority, seeks to re-establish its identity and have its voice heard.

Increasingly, Cantor, five-term congressman of Virginia’s 7th District, has stepped into the spotlight as a party leader, challenging the Democratic administration at every turn, earning the moniker, “Dr. No.”

Even Obama has taken notice, vowing to win over the Republican Whip one of these days: “I’m going to keep on talking to Eric Cantor. Some day, sooner or later, he’s going to say, ‘Boy, Obama had a good idea,’” the president said at a White House meeting in February.

But Cantor didn’t think Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package was a good idea, and so he rallied overwhelming GOP opposition to it in the House in February. He garnered similar party-line resistance in April to the president’s budget.

But now Cantor wants some of that money for Virginia.

He can’t be serious, said Jessica Santillo, DCCC’s southern regional press secretary. “Rep. Cantor led the fight against the economic recovery package that is providing these historic federal investments in high-speed rail projects,” she said.

Obama’s economic recovery package provided $8 billion in federal funds for the nationwide transportation initiative. States are now applying for the money through the Federal Railroad Administration.

Cantor, in supporting the rail funding for Virginia last week, said he and others had recently worked to “shed partisan politics” in the name of job growth.

Reached Monday, Cantor’s office repeated his commitment to job creation as the reason for supporting stimulus rail funding.

Cantor voted against the president’s stimulus package because “he felt there was excessive pork and government waste within the $787 billion bill,” said Stacey Johnson, his deputy press secretary.

“Now that the stimulus bill is the law of the land, Congressman Cantor supports high-speed rail in Virginia to help create the environment for tens of thousands of new jobs,” she said.