Political Quotes

“Just to continue, Mr. Chairman, in support of this bill, the Trust Fund dollars are like user fees people pay at the gas pumps to come back and improve our Nation's transportation system. This bill, instead of spending Highway Trust Fund dollars collected at the gas pumps on defense or health care, deficit reduction, or some other worthy endeavor, simply spends the Trust Fund user fees for their intended use. In local government, when I was in Fairfax County, if we had raided a trust fund and used it to spend the dollars for water or sewer or another use, we would have gone to jail; but at the Federal level it is perfectly legal to do that. But this starts to straighten that and bring some fiscal accountability to the Trust Fund dollars for our taxpayers. Secondly, there have been some comments about demonstration projects or earmarking. In my region, Northern Virginia, over the last 25 years we have been consistently shortchanged from the State government. Money that goes through Richmond does not come back to Northern Virginia in any way, shape or form to our proportion of highway use, population, vehicle miles or anything else. Yet we have the greatest need for transportation dollars. We have historically been shortchanged by the State.”