Political Quotes

“Alexander Hamilton and George Washington had it correct: the American Government working with the private sector can make the difference. When we talk about infrastructure, we have an opportunity this year, Congress and the President, to make a huge impact on American jobs. We are going to rewrite, in this session, the Surface Transportation Act for America. {time} 2000 Mr. Rahall and I have authored a bill that we hope becomes part of that Surface Transportation Act, that simply says: as we spend the taxpayers' money--this is money that is collected from the gasoline and the diesel excise tax--that that money be spent on American-made steel, concrete, bridges, buses, trains, whatever. It can work. One quick example. In the stimulus bill, there was an opportunity for Amtrak to buy new locomotives, about half a billion dollars to be spent on these new locomotives. In that section of the law, one sentence was added that said, These must be 100 percent American-made. Nobody was making locomotives in America before that, but Siemens, a German corporation, one of the biggest manufacturers in the world, said, Oh, half a billion dollars? We can make locomotives. In America? Sure. In Sacramento, California, they opened a manufacturing plant. There are probably somewhere between 200 and 300 people working there today manufacturing 100 percent American-made locomotives.…”