Thomas Daschle: “This bill is long overdue. Many of us hoped we could have passed it last fall. We are told that the result of not having…”

“This bill is long overdue. Many of us hoped we could have passed it last fall. We are told that the result of not having passed it means a loss of over 90,000 jobs so far. We are also told that if we pass this bill soon, we could create nearly a million new jobs. So the economic implications could not be more consequential. We also understand the difficulties our country faces with regard to its own infrastructure. We are told we have an infrastructure deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars, which is causing more congestion, more pile-ups, more time en route, more commuting, than at any other time in our Nation's history. So with the infrastructure deficit, and with the need to create jobs, I cannot think of a more important bill than this one. I hope we can continue to demonstrate some real movement as we work to complete this debate sometime soon.”