Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. And it occurred to me as we heard this discussion--and thank you to Mr. Courtney for raising these issues with us, Mr. Speaker. Because it occurred to me that while we should be spending our time focused on job creation--and we know that a core for job creation for the 21st century for this country is in our investment in our transportation infrastructure, really putting people back to work. And instead, we are relitigating what the American people thought we had finished with--health care. So here we are with a rule that then says to us, Even as the bipartisan debt commission has said that we need to invest in the Nation's infrastructure--those are investments that create jobs, jobs where taxpayers are paying into the system so that we have revenue, so that we can invest in our infrastructure--that we are going to be constrained from doing it. And I am reminded that in the last Congress, in the 111th Congress, every Member, I believe, of our Transportation and Infrastructure Committee wrote to the President of the United States saying, We need to do a long-term transportation and infrastructure bill so that our States can begin to really put people back to work. And here we are in the 112th Congress, led by the Republicans who have put forth a rules package that will constrain our ability to create jobs in this country.”