On the recordNovember 4, 2015
As Mr. Neal said, this transportation highway bill used to be a solid, bipartisan bill that invested in the future of this country. This Congress has set different expectations. I think if we are candid with ourselves and with the American people, we have become a low-expectations Congress. I guess it could be said that this bill meets, but certainly doesn't exceed, the low expectations that prevail in this body. It is true that it will have a 6-year bill authorization with 3 years of bubble-gum-styled funding. That is going to give some certainty to the agency of transportation in Vermont, so it is true that this is better than when we were doing 3-month extensions and 5-month extensions on ``pension smoothing.'' You know what? America deserves better. America needs more, and we can provide it. We have jobs to create, work to be done, workers ready to put shovels in the ground and to get America moving again. It is within our power, both sides, to make that happen. But it can't happen if we are so fearful to even discuss revenue measures that we don't have hearings on them. {time} 1345 We have had good proposals from Mr. Blumenauer, a bipartisan proposal with Mr. Renacci and Mr. Pascrell, the Delaney proposal. There are solutions out there that are going to invest in this country, generate jobs for this economy, increase the gross domestic product, and make our economy more competitive and our highway system safer.
