Americans Aren't Buying Obama's High Speed Rail Pitch

Elisabeth Meinecke | February 15, 2011 12:53 PM

Obama's obsession with funding high speed rail as a key to winning the future (cough) isn't fooling 46% of the population, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll. The scary thing is that 41% of Americans actually think it could work.

Oddly enough, since the president fancies himself as looking out for the middle and lower class (how many times have we heard him invoke middle-class tax cuts over the wealthy), the report says that "[u]pper-income Americans are more supportive of the high-speed rail plan than those who earn less than $60,000 annually."

But when it's put in terms of a free market vs. bigger government argument, support for cutting government spending instead of increasing it on high speed rail is significant. "By a 57% to 28% margin, voters believe that cutting government spending would do more to create jobs than building a high-speed rail network."