Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today the Senate has begun work on legislation that would provide our States and communities across this great land the resources and reliability they need to soundly invest in our transportation infrastructure. After a full stumble start when our friends across the aisle decided to block our ability to proceed, they reconsidered, thankfully, and I am glad to see them join us to move forward on this sensible, bipartisan bill. To this Senator, the most important part of the bill is that it doesn't kick the can down the road--at least not in the way we have done more than 30 different times. We have had more than 30 short-term transportation patches, which is a terrible way to do business, and frankly it should be embarrassing to us that we haven't been able to come up with a better solution. While a 3-year transportation bill is no panacea, it represents progress and avoids a lot of the unpredictability and wait-and-see problems our States have had when it comes to planning longer term projects. Fortunately, this multiyear bill restores some sanity by providing resources over a consistent and dependable period of time. It is actually a 6-year bill. We have come up with a bipartisan group of pay-fors to take us 3 years out, but then hopefully we will continue to work on trying to find a way to pay for the last 3 years without adding to the deficit and debt, as has happened in the past.…”