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Don't Tamper with Highway Trust Fund

Floor Speech

Date: Jan. 6, 2011
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Transportation

Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, despite repeated warnings yesterday from groups as diverse as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Ironworkers, the Laborers, the American Trucking Association, even the Motorcycle Riders of America, Republicans adopted a new rule which allows Congress to tamper with the transportation authorization fund and the highway trust fund. And despite the protests from the majority that it wasn't doing it, yesterday, UBS-PaineWebber put out a stock advisory that transportation construction companies were being downgraded because of the damage that the Congress did yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, the transportation and construction sector of our country is in a depression. There is 25 percent unemployment. The last thing this country needs is to tamper with the highway trust fund. And yesterday, that's what the new majority did.

The Democrats will fight to restore the transportation authorization fund, make sure that America has the transportation system that it needs, and get people back to work in the hardest-hit sector in the American economy.


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