Political Quotes

“I come to the floor today to support the nomination of Pete Buttigieg to be Secretary of Transportation. We all know the nominee as Mayor Pete--a man who basically came on to the national stage as a Midwest mayor who had lots of enthusiasm for making investments in America's future. So today we are considering his nomination to be Secretary of Transportation at a time when we need a lot of work done on transportation. In my opinion, he is a young, energetic mayor who is going to help us usher in a new era of transportation. That means there is going to be a lot of bipartisan dialogue about how we get there. But this job should not be underestimated in terms of the importance of the transportation sector and the investments for the future that we need. Our transportation system serves as a backbone of our economy, and when it is not doing well, the consequential impact of that affects our economy. It affects how our businesses compete in a global economy. It affects how people get to and from work, and it affects their home life as well. So it is a big job that we have, and I know that this mayor and future Secretary of Transportation understands how big this challenge is. We have underinvested in our infrastructure for decades. In the past 10 years alone, we have underfunded our infrastructure needs by $1.5 trillion.…”