[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 18029]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             INFRASTRUCTURE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, Congress returns for the final days of 
this year's session facing the same conundrum: people here and back 
home are divided over the direction of our government; they don't agree 
on how to fund what a growing and aging America needs.
  A year ago, we were engaged in a vigorous debate on taxation. More 
recently, we survived the controversy surrounding the government 
shutdown, and we still are at loggerheads.
  There are strong feelings by some that now is not the time to raise 
taxes, yet the spending levels enshrined in the House budget cannot 
produce spending bills from the Appropriations Committee that can 
actually pass on the House floor. In some cases, they appear to not 
even be able to pass from subcommittee. All the while, we are looking 
at a sea of unmet needs and face a floundering economy.
  There is one area that can help break the logjam. It won't solve all 
of our problems certainly, but it will help us significantly along the 
way. Congress should address the critical needs of our Nation's 
infrastructure deficit. Roads, bridges, transit systems are all 
increasingly at risk. We are facing an inadequate state of repair, 
construction of new facilities are on hold, and we are losing ground in 
meeting our own needs, let alone the challenges of global competition. 
Yet this challenge is an opportunity for some potential progress. We 
know what to do to meet this challenge. We can write a new 
transportation bill that will meet today's needs; it just needs more 
money.
  There is a vast coalition that supports additional resources for 
infrastructure. The so-called ``special interests'' that are so often 
at odds are remarkably aligned when it comes time to recognize and fix 
this problem. Business, labor, professional groups, local government, 
environmentalists, truckers, bicyclists all agree.
  The paralysis that surrounds questions of raising taxes does not 
necessarily need to apply in this case. Ronald Reagan, after all, was 
willing to sign into law a 5 cent gasoline tax increase 31 years ago 
when a nickel a gallon was real money. A user fee is, in fact, a 
different category from a general tax increase. The various groups that 
score such votes treat user fees differently.
  As we are attempting to resolve budget differences, there is an 
opportunity to embrace more transportation resources through user fee 
mechanisms that will have broad national support and not inspire the 
same fierce philosophical debate that has plagued and paralyzed our 
deliberations for years. It has the added benefit of being the fastest 
way to put hundreds of thousands of people to work at family-wage jobs 
to help boost our flagging economy.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to take a step back and look at this as 
a way to crack the code, to meet vast unmet needs of our constituents 
and stabilize a critical part of our budget. Who knows, if we can find 
a way to thread this particular transportation funding needle, how many 
additional opportunities to solve problems going forward can we then 
address?
  I think what it takes is simply some vision and some courage. That is 
why people sent us here in the first place. Congress should act, 
demonstrating the leadership to avoid the worsening infrastructure 
deficit, put people to work, make our families safer, healthier, and 
more economically secure.

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