Political Quotes

“Mr. DeFazio, for years you have been fighting for infrastructure. I didn't watch last night's debate as you fought fiercely to prevent one of the most foolish pieces of legislation-- well, there have been many foolish pieces of legislation proposed by our colleagues, but you couldn't be more correct. {time} 1240 Let me just put this up. I came across this yesterday. Basically what this is is it's a diagram of the employment in the construction industry. We had about, what is that, 5,570,000 men and women working in the construction industry in January, and here we are in May and we're just over 5,500,000--some 20,000, almost 30,000 have lost their jobs. And the proposals that our Republican colleagues are making would guarantee that once these projects are finished, it would be over, nothing more. But the President laid out not only a transportation bill, but he laid out a very robust jump-start to it--$50 billion of additional money invested. Now, let's understand, this is not government money; this is an investment by the American people. It is their gasoline tax, their diesel tax. It is their investment in the highways and bridges and transportation systems of this Nation. Well, I guess if you're anti-tax and you're anti-roads and you're pro-gridlock, you're guaranteeing that the economy will slow down and eventually, who knows, even collapse. Fortunately, there's a gentleman here from the great Mid-Northwest, Mr. Keith Ellison. You've been on this issue for a long time.…”