Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we are about to vote on whether we want to go to conference with our Transportation bill that passed this body with well over 60 votes in July. We have been pushing hard--Senators on both sides of the aisle--to move the House toward a situation where we can finally go to conference and reconcile the two bills. We are at that point, and I certainly hope we get a very solid vote. I am also hopeful the Wicker-Feinstein motion does succeed, and I certainly will try my best to raise it in the conference. We still have about 1.5 million unemployed construction workers since the recession. We have seen terrific job growth, but we know it hasn't hit all the sectors, so this is an extremely important bill. Also, we know that thousands in businesses rely on a robust highway trust fund. Whether it is the granite people, the cement people, they are all for going to conference. Whether it is the international association of machinists or it is the labor union, the chamber of commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, it is a rare and glorious occasion to see everybody come together and say: Let's get a bill. We want to have a robust bill. We don't want to have a bill that is business as usual and this is why--we have 60,000 bridges that are deficient. They were not built with the kinds of traffic they are now withstanding in mind, so we must have this vote to go to conference.…”