Political Quotes

“I would describe this bill as a fiscally responsible jobs bill. It is below the President's request by $1.3 billion, and below last year by one-half billion dollars. Last year, the Recovery Act demonstrated that investments in transportation and housing both support decent paying jobs, while providing critical infrastructure investments. To help the economy save jobs, we put over $60 billion in the Recovery Act for transportation and housing programs. With the exception of two new programs that were created in that bill, nearly all of the money, 98 percent, has been obligated. It has started over 14,000 transportation construction projects supporting an average of 41,000 direct jobs each quarter. It has rehabilitated or developed more than 188,000 units of low-income housing, and served over 357,000 low-income individuals through housing for the homeless. But the economic downturn was far worse than was predicted. There are still many families reeling from the housing crisis. In fact, approximately 6 million homes have been foreclosed upon in the past 3 years, and our roads, bridges and mass transit systems are in desperate need of additional investment.”