Political Quotes

“The President wanted to do two things in this area: one, the normal programs--the surface transportation program, the water resources bill, which we're going to be working on--but he also wanted to add on top of that $50 billion of infrastructure investment and create an infrastructure bank, which you so well described in your discussion here. None of that has been done, which is to the detriment of the American worker. For example, of the water programs that I was talking about early on--the $44 billion that's needed in California--for every $1 billion that you spend on a water project, you put 28,000 people to work with good middle class jobs, and I think the numbers would probably be similar for highways and bridges and the like. This is the great tragedy--that we're not moving in a direction of creating the fundamental investments. Rather, we are disinvesting--we are consuming--and that doesn't last very long, as you so well said. So what are we going to do about it? Hopefully, this House will undertake the same process, find the same wisdom of the House of Representatives and the Senate when Dwight D. Eisenhower, President Eisenhower, brought to the Congress a proposal for a national defense highway system, which we now call the interstate system. I'm sure you've got some examples that you'd like to share with us. Let's go back and forth, and we'll kind of toss the ball here.”