Political Quotes

“I am inclined to yield 5 more minutes to my friend from Wisconsin because I strongly, strongly agree with the framework that he advanced. I have come to this floor repeatedly with a simple suggestion that we index the gas tax and move forward with paying for our future. It is, I think, an interesting question if we had followed regular order dealing with transportation funding, if we would have had a hearing that would have had the President of the AFL-CIO, had the President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, truckers, AAA, legislators from seven red Republican States that have raised the gas tax and the sky didn't fall come forward and talk to Congress about what would make a difference. Because they have all agreed that we shouldn't be borrowing from the future, that we should right-size this, not playing budget games, and be able to have the most effective way to create millions of family wage jobs and show that we can do our job the same way that was led by President Eisenhower and President Reagan. That said, I think this bill does represent an important step forward because there was some regular order followed by the committee. I take my hat off to Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member DeFazio, who worked their way through a variety of contentious issues and brought forward a piece of legislation that provides modest, but important, increases in our funding programs. It retains the basic structure. It has some improvements streamlining the process.…”