It shouldn't be surprising, considering that he unveiled his state budget nine days ago at a Tea Party-led event, yet it still is:
Florida Governor Rick Scott has rejected $2.4 billion in federal funding for a high-speed rail route from Tampa to Orlando.
He made that announcement at a quickly called press conference in Tallahassee this morning.
The rejection of the federal funds comes as projections show that the state of Florida would only be on the hook for a small percentage of the overall costs of that route — and the companies who were going to bid on the project were expected to make up that shortfall, putting Florida taxpayers on the hook for potentially no costs.
But Scott said that he was worried that if projections for ridership didn't reach projections, state taxpayers would be on the hook in the future, and he couldn't take that risk.
This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2011.