A Plan to Support our Economy and our Infrastructure Needs

A PLAN TO SUPPORT OUR ECONOMY AND OUR INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS -- (House of Representatives - April 17, 2008)

(Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, John McCain has famously said that he doesn't know much about economic issues. But it's paradoxical that the Republican presidential candidate's idea for helping a troubled economy is to put people out of work and make traffic congestion worse and freight movement harder.

His proposal to stop collecting the gas tax will cut critical funding that keeps commuters, freight and our economy running. And when the trust fund is moving into deficit for the first time in our history he will only make that problem worse.

It will also lead to the loss of over 300,000 highway-related jobs, while there's no evidence that huge oil companies will cut their prices when they get this gas tax ``Holiday''. It is the worst kind of pandering to mortgage the future to serve current political needs.

Instead, it's time for our presidential candidates to talk about their vision, their plan to support our economy and our infrastructure needs.

Source