Thomas Daschle: “I wish to speak for a couple of minutes to say I hope we can invoke cloture this morning. I think this debate has been…”

“I wish to speak for a couple of minutes to say I hope we can invoke cloture this morning. I think this debate has been less than many of us had hoped. We hoped we could see more amendments. We hoped we could have a good debate about many of the issues. This is a good bill. It will create the jobs that many of us have talked about on this floor for the last couple of weeks. It will create perhaps 1 million, 2 million jobs. We have an infrastructure deficit that is growing, and this bill, more than any other bill we will take up this year, is going to address that deficit. For a lot of reasons, this represents the commitment and investment to infrastructure and our economic growth that I think warrants support for the bill. I am very concerned about where we go from here. The administration has expressed opposition to this legislation. The House has indicated they do not support the approaches that have been reflected in this bill, the very delicate balance we have achieved in public transit and a commitment to highways. I am disappointed we were not able to deal with the railroad question, as Senator Hollings and others noted yesterday. The business of completing our work is far from finished.”