Progress Illinois

Throughout the negotiations over President Obama's recovery package, Rep. Mark Kirk insisted that some form of stimulus was “necessary" to create jobs and get the nation's economy back on track. But the Republican congressman ultimately voted against the Democratic proposal because it relied too heavily on "social spending" and not enough on infrastructure projects like "highways, roads, [and] airports."

While most economists disagreed with Kirk on what constituted the most effective short-term stimulus, Kirk's point was a fair one. The nation's infrastructure is in horrible shape and well-targeted construction projects can put people back to work immediately while protecting the safety of American commuters and the environment.

But when the rubber meets the road, so to speak, there is reason to question Kirk's commitment to mass transit investments. Yesterday, we highlighted comments from Pace officials calling out Kirk for ignoring their repeated requests for federal assistance. And late last night, the North Shore Republican -- along with his colleague Rep. Peter Roskam -- voted in favor of an unsuccessful amendment to strip $4 billion in new funding for Obama's high-speed rail initiative from a broader transportation and housing bill.

Why is this money important?

Matt Yglesias explains:

HSR is a good idea for the United States, but the nature of the beast is that money is going to tend to get spread around the country rather than concentrated in one place. But it’s a big country, which means that if we’re going to achieve any kind of meaningful HSR liftoff, you need to start out with some big appropriations.

We've written ad nauseum about how high speed rail could benefit the Midwest. It's worth asking why Kirk and Roskam don't think the project is valuable.