On the recordMay 10, 2012
I have watched saddened as this House led by the Republican majority has fought to gut those things that made and that will make this country great. I'm reading a history of the U.S. House of Representatives right now, and early in that history, this body--when this Nation was barely yet born--pulled together the resources to build the Erie Canal, coming together to do great things that benefited the Nation. The list of those things goes on and on: the Louisiana Purchase, public education, land grant colleges, the GI Bill. I could go on for a very long time. Today, the Republican majority says to transportation and infrastructure, which are key to our businesses, they say kill it; to medical research, kill it; to education, kill it. Mr. Speaker, that instinct is utterly inconsistent with who we have always been as a country and why we are great and powerful and ultimately economically prosperous. It is not stewardship. It is not governance. It is barbarism. ____________________
