Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague from North Dakota for his statement. This is bipartisan. It is a bicameral effort. My colleague's point at the end, in terms of our being open to additional ideas and suggestions, is particularly appropriate. What the challenge is going to be on this transportation issue for years to come is to try to find a way to generate the additional money for the work that needs to be done in a fashion that is acceptable to the American people. If it was so easy, everybody would be just ripping through one idea after another. The two of us have spent many months trying to take the lessons we have learned from the Build America bonds effort to try to come up with a fresh approach, a fresh bipartisan approach, that would be acceptable to colleagues on both sides of the aisle. We think we have done it. We do not think this is the only way. We are certainly open to ideas and suggestions. But the model of trying to focus on the States, to build on the support we have from folks in business and labor unions, and a whole host of groups at the local level--mayors and county commissioners--strikes us as the way to go. We are open to additional ideas and suggestions. Our staffs will be working all through this week, the period of the President's Day recess, to refine our proposal, to deal with the various issues related to scoring. But this is a genuinely new approach to generating revenue.…”