On the recordJuly 15, 2014
I am glad to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), a distinguished member of our Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, we can pretend that we care about the future of America and its transportation system. We used to be number one in the world, widely recognized. We are now rated 26th, and we are moving down quickly. The system is falling apart. There are 140,000 bridges that need repair or replacement, and 40 percent of the pavement on the National Highway System has failed to the point at which you have to dig it up, not just resurface it. There is a $70 billion backlog in our transit systems just to bring everything up to a state of good repair. That is not even to begin to think about building a 21st century transportation system to compete with the rest of the world. For the Chinese, 9 percent of their GDP goes to transportation. They want to be able to move people and goods more efficiently and to out-compete us. Even Brazil, 6 percent. India, 6 percent. The United States of America, 1 percent. We have got to get serious about this. Today, we are going to do a little shuffling around of some money, and say, oh, we can pretend, by pension smoothing and this and that, that we are creating money so we get around not creating more debt or deficit here. Come on. Really, it is pretty phony stuff. Let's get real about how we are going to fund our transportation future.…
