John Culberson: “One of our principal responsibilities here is to be good stewards of our constituents' hard-earned tax dollars. It is a…”

“One of our principal responsibilities here is to be good stewards of our constituents' hard-earned tax dollars. It is a responsibility that I know each one of us takes very seriously. My amendment today will ensure that we apply the same commonsense standards to the investment of our constituents' hard-earned tax dollars that we do in the investment of our own dollars. You in your own life would not loan money or invest money in a business that was so poorly managed that it took on more debt than they could manage. You wouldn't put your money in a company that had taken on so much debt that their debt exceeded their liabilities. And, certainly, if you were applying for a bank loan, a bank would not loan your business money if your business had more debt than it had assets. That is all this amendment says is that the Federal Government will not invest our constituents' hard-earned tax dollars in a transit agency that has more debt than they do liabilities. My amendment ensures that the minimum asset-to-debt ratio that a transit entity can have is 1:1. It is common sense. This is sort of a working guideline that I know the Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee, on which I work, and the Federal Transit Administration has for years wanted to be sure that the agencies out there--transit entities across America--have no more debt than they do assets.…”