John Delaney: “This is a final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill…”

“This is a final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended. Madam Speaker, imagine if this Congress were focused on how the forces of innovation and globalization were changing our economy and making it harder for our businesses to compete, large and small. Madam Speaker, imagine if this Congress were focused on the fact that, while we are creating jobs, we are increasingly creating two types of jobs--high-skilled jobs, which are reserved for those people with the best educations, and low-skilled, low-paid jobs. Increasingly, we are not creating middle-skilled jobs--the kind of jobs that have supported middle class families for decades. Madam Speaker, imagine if this Congress were focused on the fact that, while the standard of living of average Americans is going down, the friction in their lives is going up, including the fact that so many of them have longer commutes--overbearing commutes--because of inadequate transportation, commutes that are taking time away from their families and from their communities. Madam Speaker, if this Congress were focused on those three things, then it would quickly conclude that our top domestic economic priority should be increasing our investment in our infrastructure because this Congress would understand that rebuilding America makes us more competitive.…”