Bruce L. Braley: “Sure. And I'm just going to pick up where Mr. Hall left off. We both have the pleasure of serving on the Transportation…”

“Sure. And I'm just going to pick up where Mr. Hall left off. We both have the pleasure of serving on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee here in Congress. And one of the things that we hear about every day is not just the benefits of having, oh, $137 billion to invest in infrastructure--let's just pull that number out of the air--but what happens if you don't address your critical infrastructure needs. Because we hear, for example, that for every 1 minute delay that UPS drivers have in congested urban areas in New York, in Florida, maybe lesser in Iowa, but unique, different types of delays, it imposes enormous economic costs in shipping those goods, which is then passed on to consumers all over this country. So when I fly into the airport in Moline and I have to cross the I-74 bridge, which is one of the functionally obsolete, structurally deficient bridges in my district, and they've got a lane closed down either for repair work or because an accident is there, it may take you half an hour to drive from one side of the Mississippi River to the other side. And all that does is slow down commerce, it slows down people. And at a time of rising fuel costs, it adds enormously to the prices that we pay to get where we need to go.”