Political Quotes

“This plot shows the excellent correlation between the per capita transportation fund spending in each State with the number of Senators per person that the State has. And that says a lot about how broken our transportation trust fund allocations are. So how do we allocate transportation spending? Is it calculated per capita, with each American getting roughly the same amount of transportation spending? If this were the case, then transportation money would ultimately follow Americans to whatever States they chose to live in and could be applied to the best use in each State: elegant mass transportation systems in urban States, highways through the wilderness in rural States, and well-maintained commuter highways in suburban States. Spending in this way would not be a distortion of our economy. But, Madam Chairman, that is not what we do. In fact, per capita transportation spending varies by more than a factor of seven from State to State driven by a mysterious formulae handed down from generation to generation in Congress. So, in my State of Illinois, we get about $107 per person per year in transportation spending, and I have a hard time explaining to my constituents why citizens of other States should get $200, $400, $600, or more every year in Federal highway spending. {time} 2330 The States that are getting rooked like this generally are the larger States, as can be seen on this plot.…”