Political Quotes

“we have extolled the leadership of our committee chair and ranking member and the subcommittee chair and ranking member. I think that is appropriate because they have taken a difficult task and have given us a good bill. But it falls far short of the needs that have been identified by our own Department of Transportation. One of the reasons we have had the trauma about the donor-donee over the course of the last 2 weeks is simply because we are not right-sizing this bill. Every day we are losing the battle to congestion, pollution, and bridges that are crumbling faster than we can fix them. This motion will get us one-third of the way that was envisioned by our committee leadership. It is, in fact, paid for and it will provide extra money for States large like California, Texas and New York, small States; and more important than the money in this time of economic concern are the jobs. We have seen the good work by the committee leadership and we have not really acknowledged the leadership of Speaker Hastert and Leader Pelosi who understand that the President is wrong to draw the line here for the first time in his administration to exercise fiscal responsibility, so to speak, at the needs of our infrastructure. Now it is time for the leadership here. We on this floor have the opportunity to do our part as Members of Congress. We can vote for this motion to recommit.…”