On the recordMay 12, 2015
Mr. Garamendi spoke about the Eisenhower years, which gave us the present highway trust fund. Its lasting effects make it a monumental contribution to American law. Our generation has the obligation to move on, now that we have become so efficient that the highway trust fund, as set up 50 years ago, is obsolete. I remind the House that, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln built the railroad system. How could you do that during a time when the country is split apart, and in this House, we can't figure out a way to get a highway surface transportation bill passed? I looked up the latest figures--actually, 2015--on how our country ranks today. We ought to compare that to what Lincoln did, now going on 150 years ago, and what Eisenhower did 50 years ago. We now rank 25th in the world for infrastructure quality. We are behind every last one of our allies, and now, we see some developing countries creeping forward. We better watch out for China. They are not in the top 30 now, but they are going to get there soon. I remind this House that the way in which this country became the heavyweight that it is in the world was through the development of its infrastructure. We had to somehow create a seamless infrastructure that would go from across the continental United States, from east to west and from north to south. With that, everything else became possible.…
