Rob Portman: “I am here on the floor again this evening to talk about the legislation that is before us. One is the bipartisan…”

“I am here on the floor again this evening to talk about the legislation that is before us. One is the bipartisan infrastructure legislation that passed this Chamber with 69 votes. It is great for America. It addresses real problems we have in upgrading our infrastructure, but it also deals with competitiveness. My colleague from Illinois just made a good point that we are in a global competition with other countries, including China. One reason we are not doing as well as we should is that the other countries are putting a lot more of their money into infrastructure--because it is good for their economies--and we are not. As an example, China spends a lot more, as a percent of their GDP, on infrastructure than we do--much more. So bridges and roads and railways and ports--ports are a big problem right now--all of these would be improved and would make our economy, therefore, more efficient. As the economists say, that makes us more productive as a country and allows us to be able to compete globally. Right now, with these supply chain issues, whether it is freight on the rail system or whether it is our highway system, or whether it is our port system or our waterway system, all of which need help, it would be easier for us to deal with this transition we are going through if we had better infrastructure. This infrastructure bill, unfortunately, has gotten intertwined with another bill over in the House of Representatives.…”