Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) acknowledged that elements of a $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal set to pass the House of Representatives on Friday were “embarrassing.”
“There’s $1.5 million of funding toward the international bridge between New York and Canada — a bridge,” CNN’s Poppy Harlow noted in a Thursday interview with Espaillat. “And then right around San Francisco in the Bay Area, there’s $100 million to fund the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART.”
Harlow asked whether Espaillat was comfortable with those provisions. “A lot of people will get into this got-you attitude about…” Espaillat said, before Harlow interjected, saying, “I’m not got-you. It’s there. It’s like, right here. I actually went back and read it.”
Espaillat replied, “I’m not saying you’re doing that. I’m saying that any bill that has $1.9 trillion, there will be one line that will probably be somewhat embarrassing, right?”
Harlow pressed him on the issue, responding, “You’re saying it’s embarrassing, and that’s $101.5 million of taxpayer money. And I’m just saying, are you comfortable with it?”
“The answer, no, I’m not comfortable,” Espaillat said. “I’m never comfortable with it. But I tell you what I’m comfortable with.
BART involves an underground transit system beneath San Jose, Calif. Democratic lawmakers in the region, including Rep. Zoe Lofgren and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have long been supportive of the project.
Watch above via CNN.