Political Quotes

“first I wish to thank Senator Wyden for his remarks. I concur with what he said, and I thank him for cosponsoring the amendment on infrastructure that we will be voting on in a few minutes. Senator Wyden and I understand that you cannot be a great nation if your roads and bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, airports, levees, dams, and railroad system are crumbling. That is not what a great nation is about. Years ago, the United States used to be the envy of the world in terms of infrastructure. Countries all over the world looked to the United States and asked: How do you do it? How do you provide clean water to your people? How do you have such an efficient transportation system? How do you have such great roads? That is no longer the case. Today we are in 12th place, and I don't think any of my Republican colleagues would deny that. In fact, our infrastructure is crumbling. We have to address this issue. We cannot kick the can down the road. We can't say: Well, let's wait a few years until we come up with some magic funding formula. We have to do it, and we have to do it now. The reason we have to do it now is that every year we delay, the problem only becomes worse. We are spending billions of dollars just to maintain the status quo, patching up a deteriorating system--whether it is transit, rails, roads or bridges. We have to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. There is no disagreement, I believe, in the Senate on that.…”