Rob Andrews: “I thank my friend for yielding. The seeds of this bipartisan agreement were sown in the other body 3 or 4 months ago…”

“I thank my friend for yielding. The seeds of this bipartisan agreement were sown in the other body 3 or 4 months ago; and, frankly, I wish these agreements had been brought to this floor a lot sooner. They would have done a lot more good, but I'm glad that these agreements are here today. This is a bill that will help create jobs in the transportation sector. It's overdue. It's a bill that will help our real estate industry by resolving matters about the national flood insurance program. That is overdue. And it's a bill that will avoid a dramatic doubling of student loan interest rates on Sunday, which is long overdue, so it's worth supporting. I want to commend the negotiators on both sides for another provision regarding pension law that helps offset and pay for the provisions in this bill because it, I believe, will represent a significant investment by businesses around the country in job creation and purchasing of equipment and capital goods. Under the terms of the pension pay-for in this bill, American employers will have about $28 billion for the next year to spend on something other than pension plan contributions. Now their pensions will be safe and secure, but this is $28 billion that will be available to these companies--private money--to hire people, to buy equipment, to invest in their companies and to help their businesses grow. This is businesses as large as some of the major companies in our country and businesses that are quite small.…”