Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2015, Part II

Floor Speech

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I support workers and the important transportation and infrastructure jobs they do. They deserve the certainty and support that a long-term, well-funded highway funding bill would provide. H.R. 3038 is not that bill.

Our infrastructure is rated a D+ by the American Society of Civil Engineers. A transportation system that was once the envy of the world has fallen into disrepair. We've passed dozens of short-term extensions over the past decade, and they haven't done the trick.

We know where this bill will leave us: infrastructure projects won't be planned beyond December, long-overdue projects will hang in limbo, and workers will be left wondering if they'll spend the holidays unemployed.

Every business owner, worker, and state and local official I have spoken with has asked for the same thing: a long-term, well-funded bill. In order to do that, we need to make a commitment to filling the funding gap from the gas tax--which has not been increased in more than two decades.

I support gradually raising the gas tax to pay for our infrastructure priorities. I also joined 184 of my Democratic colleagues in supporting a motion that would have paid for a long-term, well-funded highway bill by preventing corporate tax inversions--the process of moving corporate headquarters overseas. Just one Republican supported that proposal. Doing either of those things would sustain the vital infrastructure investments we need.

Those who suggest we can't afford a good highway bill are wrong. We are the richest country in the world at the richest time in our history. Funding our roads and bridges is a priority. We can afford it, and the American people demand that we do.

What we cannot do is continue the path of unpredictability and short-term planning that results from these stopgap measures for our highways, bridges, and other infrastructure projects. That is why I voted against H.R. 3038.

This is the greatest country in the world, and there is nothing we cannot do. It's time to act accordingly by advancing a long-term, well-funded transportation bill.

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