Political Quotes

“You're absolutely correct that if we're to deal with the deficit, we have to put Americans back to work. The infrastructure has, over the years, been a principal way in which you employ Americans--we did this with the stimulus bill and it had great effect-- but it also builds the foundation for tomorrow's economic growth and protects people along the way. It protects property; it protects valuable assets that we have in our Nation. The President has been very clear about this for more than 15 months now. Fifteen months ago he put before Congress the American Jobs Act, one element of which was the infrastructure. He wanted an additional $50 billion over and above the $53 billion that you described earlier, Mr. Higgins, as the ongoing infrastructure. Our colleague here, we talked earlier--I think Mr. Higgins you raised this issue, and Mr. Tonko did also--Thursday, two days from now, we're going to take up the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the plan for our national security, the military. In that piece of legislation there is a minimum of $88 billion to be spent between October 2012 and September 30 of 2013 on the Afghanistan war, $88 billion. That's a lot of money. All that we're talking about in this cut discussion that's under way between the President and Mr. Boehner is somewhere, $400 billion, maybe $500 billion; $88 billion in Afghanistan next year. A good portion of that is for infrastructure in Afghanistan, as was discussed earlier today.…”