Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I would like to go through history. The former chairman of the Infrastructure Committee on the last large highway bill, SAFETEA-LU, that was passed, I had a dear friend from Minnesota named Jim Oberstar who served beside me and worked with me to write that piece of legislation. Finally, he became the chairman. What is impressive about that, this gentleman had more knowledge about transportation probably than anyone in this House has ever had, including myself. I will tell you what was the biggest disappointment of his life is he wanted to write a transportation bill, a long-term transportation bill, and fund it. And guess who said no. Our President, Mr. Obama. His Secretary, a dear friend of mine, came down and said there is no way we are going to pass a long-term bill with full funding. He did not support Jim Oberstar. What I wanted to do was to fully fund it, and I was opposed then by the seated President, George W. Bush. In fact, if Mr. Oberstar had the opportunity, with the Senate being in the control of the President's party and the House being in the control of the President's party, we would not be here today. We would have infrastructure, bar none. We wouldn't be discussing what we are doing today. This measure today is a stopgap measure. But this Congress has to wake up, and the President should have woken up then when he had control to pass legislation for the infrastructure of this country.…”