On the recordApril 23, 2013
Unsafe. In one county in Ohio, and there's 88 counties. And we have high unemployment, much higher than any of us would want. And, yes, we have problems; but the Federal Government is getting money at 1 percent. And I know my friends--and I'm on the Budget Committee and we talk a lot about deficits and everything else--I know a lot of people would say we can't borrow our way out of this. And what I'm saying--my argument that I'm making--and I don't want to attribute anybody else to this--is that we've got major billion-dollar, hundreds of billion dollars--probably the Society of Engineers says a couple trillion dollars' worth of infrastructure needs over the next decade or so--why wouldn't we invest in these projects? And they say, well, you've got to borrow the money. We're going to borrow the money at 1 percent, maybe a little higher, depending on the day of the week. {time} 1950 That project that we can do today is going to be a certain price. It's going to be $100, say. What's that project going to be like in 5 or 10 years? It's going to be that much more expensive. Labor is going to be more expensive. Energy costs are going to be more expensive. The raw materials are going to be more expensive. Cement is going to be more expensive. Steel and brick are going to be more expensive. Go right down the line. Everything is going to be more expensive. And part of the problem with the Treasury is we don't have enough people working, paying taxes into the Treasury.…
Source
govinfo.gov




