Political Quotes

“I come to floor to talk about a bit of a crisis the United States is in right now. We are out of money, but we are not recognizing that we are out of money. We must make that realization soon. We are going to have to do some work for this country to keep it operating so that the next generation has the same hope as the present generation. I think the best example of where we are is probably this highway bill. Highways are important to this country. We need them to get from one place to another. We need them to move the goods across this country to keep the economy going--highways are extremely important. Highways have always been funded from a gas tax, until now. Using different funding is a prime example of what is about to happen in all of the bills that we do because we have run out of money and we haven't taken the necessary steps to solve that crisis. When the highway bill came to the Finance Committee, I suggested that we ought to change the gas tax so that there was an inflationary rate added each year for the following year. That was the least that I could think of to do for highways. It would have added half a cent a gallon. The price fluctuates at the pump more than half a cent a day. I have to tell you, though, that I really thought there would be strong support for doing something like that, taking a minimal step. I had the amendment devised so that it could be changed easily to increase that amount.…”