Political Quotes

“The gentleman says that Federalism is good sometimes but not other times, and States' rights are important sometimes but not other times. Let me be clear: We are not talking about the transit lines themselves. This is transit-oriented development. Let me break it down for everybody here. There is a transit line running somewhere. There is not a lot of ridership on it, so we have to boost the ridership. What that means is that we are going to subsidize some developer to build housing or whatever other development adjacent to the line to hope that those people will then get on that transit line. That is what is happening here. You know what happens next. We subsidize the development. Then, the people who get into that development take their cars to wherever they are going and don't ride on the transit line. If you have to have transit lines, God bless you. That is awesome. If you want to ride them, God bless you. That is awesome. There is no reason whatsoever that this is a Federal requirement or a Federal nexus at all to build developments next to transit lines. If States and localities want to do that, if they want to subsidize them, God bless them, too. They should do that, but people in Pennsylvania shouldn't be supporting transit-related development in California any more than people in California should be supporting it in Illinois. That is no Federal nexus. If Illinois wants to do it, they should. If Pennsylvania wants to do it, they should.…”