Janice Schakowsky: “Everybody has the same issues: the underground systems, the water systems, the overhead systems, the bridges. I wonder…”

“Everybody has the same issues: the underground systems, the water systems, the overhead systems, the bridges. I wonder sometimes about those who don't support the American Jobs Act. Don't they drive over bridges? Don't their families drive over bridges? We have 400 unsafe, structurally unsafe bridges in the State of Illinois, and so aside from the jobs that it would create, the safety issues that would be addressed. I wanted to just debunk a myth that is so persistent and that some of our colleagues on the Republican side want to repeat over and over again, and that is that the stimulus bill did nothing, created no jobs. And of course that's just not true. No matter how many times they say it, it is not true. Between 1.9 million and 3 million jobs were created or saved. But I also know it's not true because many of those same people, when the ribbons get cut on those projects, actually appear at the ribbon cuttings. As we speak right now, there are people who are collecting those photos and videos and news accounts of those people who say the stimulus program created no jobs so that we can compile those kind of things and show the hypocrisy that you have when the project opens, there they are, smiling and cutting the ribbon, because it's not true. It did create jobs. I wanted to point out that at the very beginning of our country, George Washington asked Alexander Hamilton to come up with a manufacturing strategy.…”