Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise in support of amendment No. 859, which is a germane amendment to the underlying bill. It is one I introduced that would restore fairness, encourage competition, and prevent many States around the country from seeing cost increases in the price of guardrails. This amendment specifically addresses the Transportation bill we are talking about and addresses one of the new provisions in the bill this year that is a mandate that I think is not appropriate. A lot of States have infrastructure challenges right now, and the last thing we should be doing here in the Congress is making it more difficult for States to pay for their infrastructure with the limited transportation dollars they have. With the fiscal crisis we have, we have to make sure now more than ever that States have the flexibility to meet the requirements from the Federal Government. At a time when unemployment is over 9 percent and we have over 14 million Americans out of work, we should be doing everything we can to protect jobs. This amendment would hurt jobs, and this amendment I am offering would give States more flexibility to help keep some jobs. There are countless miles of guardrails in our country, and many of those are manufactured in my home State of Ohio.…”