Political Quotes

“I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Washington, Congressman McDermott. Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, when we came into this session, there was a lot of talk in this House about the fact that we needed jobs, lots and lots of talk on the other side about how they were going to take care of this economy and we were going to finally get some jobs. There hasn't been one single bill put out here in 441 days. We are still waiting for a jobs bill from the Republican leadership. Now, I don't want to dismiss the piece of legislation we're discussing here. I'm sure it's very important to have 32 acres of Virginia, and perhaps maybe there will be 100 jobs there. Those are important jobs for those people. We are in favor of that. What's hard to understand is the Republicans' idea of priorities. Mr. Chairman, I can't understand how the Republican leadership could let the highway bill expire in 11 days and end highway construction in the United States of America and bring out instead a bill for 32 acres in rural Virginia that--most of us would have a tough time finding Accomack County on a map. There are 550,000 people working on rebuilding infrastructure in this country in the highway system, and the Republican leadership won't bring it out because they've got a fight inside. They've got a fight inside. They've got a bill that is so bad that it bankrupts the highway trust in 2016 and creates a $78 billion funding shortfall over the next 10 years.…”