[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4875-4876]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1215
                THE NATION'S INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS REPAIR

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, 45 days from today, temporary funding for 
the surface transportation trust fund expires. Despite the fact that we 
have 140,000 bridges that need repair or replacement, 40 percent of the 
road surface needs substantial investment, and a $70 billion backlog in 
our mass transit systems for a state of good repair, the support drops 
to zero in 45 days. We need an unimaginable amount of money to fund 
that for the next 5 years. We need $120 billion.
  Where could we find $120 billion? Well, tomorrow the Republicans are 
going to repeal the remains of the estate tax. That is that two one-
hundredths of 1 percent of estates that are worth more than $10 
million, under the Republican plan, will pay no taxes when they leave 
that money to their kids--no taxes. It costs $270 billion to give that 
tax relief to two one-hundredths of 1 percent of the families in this 
country.

[[Page 4876]]

  How about we spend that money rebuilding the Nation's infrastructure, 
put hundreds of thousands of people to work, benefit all of America 
with better roads, with safe bridges, with transit systems that don't 
kill people because of their state of bad repair? Even the wealthy 
might benefit from that, although they don't use the system because 
they fly above it in their helicopters and they don't notice from the 
backseat of their limousines.

                          ____________________