Providing for Further Consideration of Senate Amendments to H.R. 22, Hire More Heroes Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, as Mr. Neal said, this transportation highway
bill used to be a solid, bipartisan bill that invested in the future of
this country. This Congress has set different expectations. I think if
we are candid with ourselves and with the American people, we have
become a low-expectations Congress. I guess it could be said that this
bill meets, but certainly doesn't exceed, the low expectations that
prevail in this body.

It is true that it will have a 6-year bill authorization with 3 years
of bubble-gum-styled funding. That is going to give some certainty to
the agency of transportation in Vermont, so it is true that this is
better than when we were doing 3-month extensions and 5-month
extensions on ``pension smoothing.''

You know what? America deserves better. America needs more, and we
can provide it. We have jobs to create, work to be done, workers ready
to put shovels in the ground and to get America moving again. It is
within our power, both sides, to make that happen. But it can't happen
if we are so fearful to even discuss revenue measures that we don't
have hearings on them.

We have had good proposals from Mr. Blumenauer, a bipartisan proposal
with Mr. Renacci and Mr. Pascrell, the Delaney proposal. There are
solutions out there that are going to invest in this country, generate
jobs for this economy, increase the gross domestic product, and make
our economy more competitive and our highway system safer.

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