Robert Torricelli: “This package is not complete if we deal with unemployment and health benefits and the impacted area of New York, but we…”

“This package is not complete if we deal with unemployment and health benefits and the impacted area of New York, but we do not also do something about the national infrastructure. The truth is this Nation had a severe infrastructure problem long before there was a recession. Thirty-three percent of the Nation's half million bridges are structurally deficient. Fourteen million children attend schools that are a decade or two beyond the needs of basic repairs. The time to do that work is when we have workers to do it. In 6 months or a year, as commercial construction activity in the Nation slows and people employed in the building trades add to the ranks of the unemployed, the one means of keeping them working is to do the work for the Nation that already needs to be done. Yet our Republican friends and even some in the media call this a special interest--pork. Can building a school for a child in a deficient structure ever be a needless expenditure? It may be safe for someone in some media outlet or someone who feels good about their own child to call building a school pork. To me, it is meeting a basic obligation. I have placed in this bill, and I make no apologies for it, a major national investment in national infrastructure to build high-speed rail lines. It is right and it is proper. As was demonstrated on September 11, this Nation's transportation infrastructure is fragile. When it is interrupted, business stops, employment declines, and the Nation's economy suffers.”