On the recordJuly 15, 2015
I thank my friend on the Committee on Rules for yielding and appreciate what he is doing down here today. Mr. Speaker, you serve on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, as I do; you know how important it is that we get to these infrastructure questions. I see colleague after colleague after colleague coming and saying we need long-term solutions to infrastructure. What I don't see is any colleague coming and saying that those long-term solutions are available to us, as we stand here today. I don't have to get everything I want in this institution, Mr. Speaker, but I do have to move the ball forward. Three yards and a cloud of dust is what I tell constituents back home is the way we are going to get what we all want for this country; and if the answer is to sit on your hands and do nothing for this thing that has been so vexing to this institution, we are looking at 34, 35 extensions. We have an opportunity to put a stop to it. The Senate, in its wildest imaginations, says maybe we can get a 4-year deal; most likely, it will be an 18-month deal. When I turn to the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means here in the House, when I turn to the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in the House, they say: Colleagues, give me 5 months, and we can do it right. Colleagues, give me 5 months, and we will do what no other Congress has been able to do for nearly a decade.…
