Political Quotes

“Ms. Jackson Lee, you've talked about the investments; you've talked about the international aspects of our economy. Mr. Tonko, you were so correct when you talk about what happens when those infrastructures are not there. Now, in the American Jobs Act, which we ought to be working on and passing, there is $50 billion over and above the ongoing money. This is new money, additional money, that would be immediately available to restore the coastal areas of the United States, to rebuild the infrastructure and those areas that have been hard hit by the floods of this year, to improve the 100-year-old-plus bridges in America. Those are all things that we need to move our economy. Ms. Sutton from Ohio talked earlier about the sanitation and water systems. Each and every one of these should be framed in such a way as to create American jobs, not just the construction jobs but the rest of the story, which is the concrete, the steel, the bolts, the pumps. All of those things that go into the infrastructure can and should be American made if we have a policy. Now, on the floor here 3 weeks ago, we were talking about this; and our colleague from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) brought something to the floor that just blew me away. She brought a document that was prepared in 1788 by George Washington, and it was a manufacturing policy for America. He told Hamilton, who was then the Secretary of the Treasury, to go out and to develop eight steps for an American manufacturing policy.…”