Political Quotes

“Last year, you and I talked--or last Congress, which was last year, you and I talked about this Make It in America, this manufacturing. We spent a lot of time talking about it. I had introduced in that session of Congress legislation that would require that our tax money--at least 85 percent of it--be spent on American- made products and equipment. Let's take the Superstorm Sandy situation. We know that, for example, Amtrak is receiving, I think, a little over $150 million to repair its tracks that were damaged by Superstorm Sandy. Those are jobs--men and women will be working--but it's also steel, it's electrical wires, it's consultants, and it will undoubtedly be various kinds of electrical systems that will be used by Amtrak in rebuilding, similarly with regard to the subways in New York. Now, if we were able to write into the Superstorm Sandy legislation that 85 percent of that money that's used on rebuilding the infrastructure came from American-made products--in other words, Buy America--then that would not only put people back to work, but it would stimulate the steel industry, the electrical industry, and certainly the consultants, engineers, and architects. So I'm going to reintroduce that legislation--too late now for Superstorm Sandy, but there will be other legislation. For example, we know that we're going to have to rewrite a new transportation bill in this session. There's a 2-year bill that's now in place.…”