James Oberstar: “Listening to all these previous speakers who came up with one or another complaint about this legislation, one would…”

“Listening to all these previous speakers who came up with one or another complaint about this legislation, one would think Chicken Little was right, the sky is falling all around us, or the budget. Or one might think that this bill is some sort of budgetary Pac Man chewing its way through the budget, nibbling up everything else for every other function. To say that we cannot do anything for education or we cannot do anything for veterans because of this bill is absolute hogwash. Look at the budget and the billions of dollars that are in that budget for every other function of government. To say that we are taking $26 billion is wrong. It is $25.4; let us be right, let us get the numbers right. Even if my colleagues figure out that a decimal point does not go over a halfway point they can slip it over to the first. Let us be exact about it, $25.4 billion. That is $4 billion a year over the budget agreement over the period of this bill. Do my colleagues mean they cannot find $4 billion in a $1.7 trillion federal budget? Out of a $7 trillion national economy? That transportation accounts for over 10 percent of our total gross domestic product, approaching $778 billion, the transportation sector alone? It is the engine driving the national economy. For 30 years, my colleagues, for 30 years surpluses have been building up in the Highway Trust Fund, being used to fund other functions of government.”