Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. President, and I thank the Senator from New York for bringing us all together this evening to talk about the really vital economic importance of the Northeast corridor to States such as Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York. This is a pivotal moment for the Northeast corridor. We have a region that is growing with respect to the number of people who are using the rail but an infrastructure that is dramatically aging. It is important to remember the connection between investment in rail and the emergence of this Nation's economic greatness. The rail line that means the most to us in Connecticut was chartered in 1844. It was the New York and New Haven Railroad, and it was initially built to connect New York to Boston, going through New Haven and going through Connecticut. Later on, it had a spur going through Long Island and then a spur connecting down to Providence. It was built at a time of massive rail expansion all across the country. In the last 25 years of the 1800s, where a lot of this expansion happened after the initial investment in places such as New York and Connecticut and Boston, the expansion of rail led to a tenfold increase in economic output for this Nation. It allowed for enormous social and economic mobility because if you didn't like the circumstances where you were today, tomorrow you could be halfway across the country because of a train.…”