Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Chairman, I became a member of the Appropriations Committee this Congress to make the tough funding choices that determine our national priorities, but this year's budget allocations have taken those choices away from us.

This bill is being touted as a budgetary tradeoff, but there are no tradeoffs in this bill. There are only cuts. Investments in our infrastructure are needed more than ever. Yet this bill makes some of the most significant cuts to vital transportation programs in decades.

We all remember the Recovery Act. An interesting fact about the Recovery Act is about 6 or 7 percent of that bill dealt with infrastructure, but that 6 or 7 percent of that bill created about two-thirds of the jobs that the act created.

Unfortunately, in this bill there's no funding for TIGER grants, which fund infrastructure projects like the Elgin-O'Hare Western Access Project in my district, and no funding for Core Capacity Grants to fund desperately needed improvements to transit systems like the Chicago Transit Authority. Instead of increasing safety and capacity in air travel, we're slashing funding to the FAA's air traffic control modernization program. Instead of expanding rail service, we're cutting Amtrak's capital program by 37 percent.

The housing numbers are even worse. This bill cuts funding to housing programs that not only work but have a proven track record of saving the taxpayer money. There's no funding for the Choice Neighborhoods program, which helps communities revitalize distressed neighborhoods. There are significant cuts to the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS program, which is used to house some of the most vulnerable among us, and also another program which saves money. Community Development Block Grants, used by communities across the country, have been cut in half and are at their lowest levels since the Ford administration.

We're cutting investments in our future and essential services to those in need to pay for bloated defense spending the Pentagon often itself says it doesn't need. In the final analysis, countries that succeed invest in research, education, and infrastructure. Mr. Chairman, we're cutting all three.

I joined this committee to make the smart funding choices that will propel our Nation forward, but this bill does just the opposite. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

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