Political Quotes

“Mr. President, before the Senator from Tennessee leaves, I wish to thank him very much for joining Senator Boxer and me in this Senate to create a dynamic that will enable us to do our job. He shows time and again the courage to keep out of step when everybody else is marching to the wrong tune. So does Barbara Boxer. She has shown extraordinary leadership in the Environment and Public Works Committee, on which I serve. I serve as chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure. She and Senator Vitter and Senator Barrasso, with a little help from me, were able to guide through committee and report a secure transportation bill--a plan for the transportation for our country, including roads, highways, bridges, transit systems--and report it out of committee without amendment, without a dissenting vote, and bring it to the floor of the Senate. If it were that easy, we wouldn't all be here tonight. There is other legislation, companion legislation that came out of the commerce committee for, among other things, freight railroads, passenger railroads. They have jurisdiction over aviation as well. The banking committee has jurisdiction over transit systems. So there is a shared responsibility here, and there is a shared responsibility to figure out how to pay for all of this. How do we pay for this? We are spending somewhere around $17 billion, $18 billion a year for the Federal share for transportation projects.…”