Political Quotes

“Mr. President, earlier today I was on the floor speaking about the importance of a program called the economic development revitalization. It has been in place since 1965. It has run out of its authority. Our committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee, in a near unanimous vote--almost unanimous--decided it was really worth making some reforms to the program to make it work even better and to reauthorize it. I am going to turn the time over to my wonderful friend, Jim Inhofe. He and I, as everybody knows, are good friends. We work very well together. There are issues on which we sharply disagree. I think they would fall on the environmental side. But when it comes to public works, when it comes to building the infrastructure of our country, when it comes to jobs related to the private sector, we are very much joined at the hip. On this particular issue, we are together because we look at this and we say that at a time when there need to be jobs, over a 2-year period beginning in 2009, grantees estimate that EDA-funded projects created over 160,000, and for every $1 invested by the Federal Government $7 came from the private sector. It is my pleasure to yield to make sure my ranking member has sufficient time for whatever he would like to speak to this issue.”