Political Quotes

“I thank both gentlemen for yielding and for their support of this important resolution. I thank Mr. Duncan for his leadership and for supporting this resolution. Mr. DeFazio, of course, has been a champion on these issues for a long time. And in terms of building the infrastructure of America, Mr. Blumenauer has, through his relentless advocacy for building America's infrastructure in an environmentally sound way, has added to the vision of how we want to do this. I learned about the Gallatin Report, which you talked about, Mr. DeFazio, from Mr. Blumenauer. Imagine 200 years ago, around the time of the Lewis and Clark expeditions and the Louisiana Purchase, a great President realized that for commerce to flow and for people to move and our country to flourish, we needed to build the infrastructure of our country; and Mr. DeFazio described the immensity of that project by Albert Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury. Secretary Gallatin said at the time his vision of roads and canals to unite our young Nation could not be left to individual exertion. Contrary to popular thinking at the time, Gallatin had the great foresight to see the long-term benefits of infrastructure investments far outweighed the cost. And because of that, public capital, not just private resources, were necessary. From the beginning of our country, our Founders and the leaders of our country were entrepreneurs. They were risk-takers.…”