Political Quotes

“For as long as I have been in Congress, both parties and two successive administrations have danced around the issue of our infrastructure deficit. For all the attention to the various fiscal cliffs, the looming infrastructure deficit is every bit as critical. For two centuries, infrastructure was a bipartisan issue, from Lincoln, with the transcontinental railroad, to Democrats and Republicans coming together to launch the interstate freeway system signed into law by President Eisenhower. Subsequent road, transit and water investments helped fuel our economy and tie the Nation together. More recently, the failure to address long-term funding has also been bipartisan. The Bush administration ignored strong recommendations from their own private sector experts that they empanelled to give advice. Although the Obama administration did request and employ some modest funding in the Recovery Act and has proposed an infrastructure bank and talked extensively and, I think, sincerely about the need for investment, what has been lacking has been a specific, concrete proposal from either party to address infrastructure financing in America. While the political maneuvering has occurred here in Washington, the gap in the highway trust fund has been growing, and conditions of our roads, bridges, and transit systems have been deteriorating.…”