the lack of any budget last year that was done, or any assumption of responsibility for actually doing our work in Congress, that this is the reason we are in this mess today.

the message was to cut spending. I don't know if anybody else got that message, but I certainly did in my district.

the President sent up a budget. He didn't include one recommendation from this Bipartisanship Commission that has been praised so widely.

I don't like H.R. 1. I had a proposal that indicated that we should take Lee Iacocca's approach and cut everybody across the board some amount.

It is refreshing that the former chairman, now the ranking member, has acknowledged that the reason that they have the cash carryover is because they were so late in delivering the budget for fiscal year 2010.

I think we all agree that taking more than a year to get appropriated funds out the door is simply unacceptable.

The $48 billion that you all gave us in the stimulus worked. It created 15,000 projects and put 65,000 Americans to work.

How can you justify taking more money out of the trust fund for some other initiative?

If our goal is to put Americans to work, no better way to do it than with the transportation bill.

I know. But the problem is we have got to back fill $35 billion out of the general fund just to make our current commitment.

I don't see any progress actually being made on a reauthorization.