Victor Fazio: “I yield to no Member of this institution in my love for infrastructure. I think we all appreciate the fact that this…”

“I yield to no Member of this institution in my love for infrastructure. I think we all appreciate the fact that this bill gives us a great opportunity to take something home to the people who send us here. But my problem with it is that it is, frankly, too big. This is not just a vote about bridges and highways. This is, in fact, the budget vote for this Congress. This is a vote that is going to shape the Federal budget not just this year but for the next 5 years. We have already passed the deficit reduction package in the first year of this Congress. Most of the cuts occur in the outyears. Most of the outlays in this bill occur in the outyears. The Budget crunch is out ahead of us. Those of us on this side of the aisle who want another 100,000 teachers in the classroom so we can reduce classroom size, or who want to expand Medicare to people who are 55 to 65 and have lost their jobs and their health benefits and those on the other side of the aisle who think they may want some tax cuts in the future are, at this point, being told by the people bringing us this bill that their priorities do not count that they have no lace in the debate. If we want to protect social security by allowing the surplus to be held in abeyance until we come up with that fix, we can count on that surplus being spent if this bill passes.”