On the recordMarch 25, 2015
I thank my good friend from Maryland for yielding. Mr. Chairman, about the only thing any of the Republican budgets have done in recent years is to cut the deficit, ignoring altogether the desperate needs and declining wages of the people. This year, the American people will give Congress no credit for a budget that does not grow jobs and good wages. The Republican budget cuts growth by 2.5 percent, and it devastates almost 3 million jobs. Instead of using a readymade need in order to grow good jobs with good wages--the surface transportation bill that must be authorized this year--the Republican budget would, for the first time in our history, cut almost all new highway and transit funding. States would be left able to fill potholes but unable to begin a single new project. Infrastructure needs must be met at some point anyway, so we do ourselves no favor by our serial failure to meet the needs that also have been shown to be the best way to fuel the economy with good jobs. There is no magical way to cut our way into good jobs and begin to repair income inequality. The old-fashioned, American way of building America's neglected infrastructure is the best way today, as it was when President Eisenhower initiated the surface transportation bill 70 years ago.
