[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 72 (Wednesday, May 14, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H4094]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           ADMINISTRATION UNVEILS TRANSPORTATION FUNDING PLAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, today the Bush administration unveiled 
its transportation funding plan for the next 6-year surface 
transportation bill. It is pathetically inadequate. If you look at the 
inventory of needs across the United States of America, the crumbling 
bridges, the crumbling highways, the congestion, the need for 
investment, the President and his staff believe that this budget should 
be flat-lined. We can't afford the investment, they tell us. We can't 
afford to invest more in roads, bridges and highways, in high-speed 
rail and congestion mitigation. We just can't afford it. Oh, we can 
afford massive tax cuts for the wealthy, but if we are going to have 
massive tax cuts for the wealthy, his number one job creation proposal, 
we can't afford to create real jobs, jobs in the construction industry.
  By his own measure, by the measure of the Bush administration 
Department of Transportation, every $1 billion spent on transportation 
infrastructure and construction produces 47,000 jobs in the United 
States of America. If the President would just increase his proposal to 
come close to that being made by the Republican Chair of the Committee 
on Transportation and Infrastructure, they would create 705,000 new 
jobs a year in the United States of America; real jobs, construction 
jobs and related jobs in small businesses, and suppliers for those 
construction companies.

                              {time}  1630

  Instead, they want to engage in the charade of producing jobs through 
trickle-down economics and tax cuts. It did not work in the 1980's for 
Ronald Reagan. It did not work for George Bush the First, and it is not 
going to work for this George Bush. In fact, his first tax cuts, which 
were record tax cuts, have not produced any jobs. We have lost nearly a 
million jobs since his first tax cuts. They have lots of excuses why we 
have lost those jobs since his record tax cuts went into effect. Mostly 
Bill Clinton, a few other things, world events; but they have got 
people to blame, and they are saying since those tax cuts did not work, 
let us borrow money from the Social Security trust Fund, from the 
Medicare trust fund; let us borrow money to fund more tax cuts because 
that is what we have to do now.
  When we did that first set of tax cuts, we supposedly had a surplus. 
We no longer have a surplus. We have a huge and growing deficit. We are 
accumulating debt by more than $1 billion a day; $1 billion a day we 
are adding to the future debt of the young people of this country. And 
they want to borrow more money to finance tax cuts for woefully few 
people, an average of $105,000 for every millionaire. But somehow they 
think that $105,000 granted to every millionaire in this country in tax 
cuts will put more people to work than $1 billion invested in crumbling 
bridges, roads, and highways.
  It is pretty simple. We could put people back to work. We could make 
this a more productive country. We could make our transportation system 
work better. But, no. Tax cuts for precious few political campaign 
contributors are more important to this administration.

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