Political Quotes

“Madam President, the Senate will take a vote shortly on a resolution from Senator Schmitt dealing with infrastructure funding. The discussion of the resolution has been pretty quiet because, on its face, it looks like it is an issue dealing with a lot of budgetary lingo and ``Washingtonese.'' Obligated funds and expenditure deadlines are what people hear about. But the reality is this proposal is anti- infrastructure. It could put stop-work orders on thousands of infrastructure projects across the country. Some of them have shovels in the ground as we speak. (Mr. OSSOFF assumed the Chair.) My concern is, Mr. President, we pass this, and we would be going virtually from a period where folks in Georgia and elsewhere had hard hats to where they are facing layoffs. Here is the background: In 2021, Congress passed emergency funding for State and local governments. At the time, there was a big concern that their budgets would get clobbered by the pandemic, which had hammered our economy and put millions out of work. But State and local budgets fared better than expected. So later on, Senators were looking, on a bipartisan basis, for smart ways to rebuild our infrastructure--roads and bridges and highways, water and sewer, and also broadband projects. There was bipartisan agreement that Congress ought to allow that leftover State and local funding to be repurposed for these important infrastructure projects.…”