On the recordNovember 4, 2015
I appreciate my friend from Colorado working with me on this rule today. I appreciate all the folks on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure who made this possible, and the whole body that came in front of the Committee on Rules, bringing amendments to try to make the bill better. I don't want to suggest that the differences that we have between one another here are in any way going away because of this bill. They are not. I have heard passionate speech after passionate speech about funding of this bill. I share some of those concerns, but I represent a county of 200,000 people who just raised $200 million in a bonding initiative to build their roads. Until my colleagues have raised the taxes on their constituents by $1,000 on every man, woman, and child--$4,000 on a family of four--to build roads back home in your district, please don't come and ask my constituents to pay even more. Georgia is one of the States that has raised its gas tax, from a 7 cent sales tax to a 26 cent excise tax. When your State has taken on that same burden of responsibility, come back to me and tell me how much more Georgia needs to put in to help you. The devolution of the transportation trust fund has long been a conversation in this body, but by holding the Federal gas tax constant over these years, that devolution has been happening naturally with the effect of inflation, and localities are picking up the tab.…
