Our Crumbling Infrastructure

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, for generations, this country's infrastructure served as the backbone for our economic success. We dreamed big, we built bigger, and our economy flourished; but today our infrastructure is crumbling, and the growth of our economy is slow. Without serious long-term investments in our transportation infrastructure, we simply will not be able to compete in today's global economy.

Over the past 50 years, as a share of our economy, our investment in transportation has shrunk by half. Europe now invests twice as much as we do in transportation. China invests four times as much. Over time, America has fallen into 19th place when it comes to the quality of our infrastructure.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in my hometown of Chicago, where 1,000 miles of road in the city of Chicago are in need of total reconstruction. 675 bridges in Cook County are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. North Lake Shore Drive is one of the highest accident locations in the State as a result of its aging infrastructure.

The CTA is a century-old transit system that desperately needs updates to keep up with increased capacity. Oh, by the way, the CTA in Chicago in 1 month carries more passengers than Amtrak does in an entire year.

All of these things will cost money, but the long-term economic benefits they will provide will far outweigh the upfront cost. The President likes to say that first-class infrastructure attracts first-class jobs, and he is right. Business needs strong infrastructure to grow. They need good highways and railways to move their products. They need reliable public transit to get their employees to work.

Infrastructure investment requires forward thinking; it requires long-term planning. The fact that Congress faces its lowest public approval ratings ever while this country's infrastructure is crumbling is no coincidence. In my second year on the Appropriations Committee, I know all too well how little this Congress is investing in our future.

I became an appropriator to help bring much-needed funding back to my city and my State, but politics has replaced progress when it comes to my committee's once immense power of the purse. The important work of the Appropriations Committee to help cities and States fund critical infrastructure improvements has been stymied by the inability of this Congress to set aside our differences and look beyond the next election. We are trying to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure one year at a time, and we are coming up short. When did we decide that planning one year ahead was good enough? Name one successful business that operates this way.

We shouldn't be forcing cities like Chicago and States like Illinois to make plans based on stopgap funding measures. We owe it to our constituents to provide a far-reaching plan that gives cities and States the certainty they need to plan ahead and invest in tomorrow. We should be empowering cities and States to make their own choices for their long-term success by providing them with the funding to do so.

It is time for this Congress to go big and plan for the long-term projects that will modernize our infrastructure, spur economic growth, create jobs. Remember, every billion dollars invested in infrastructure creates 30,000 jobs.

Congress will face an important test over the next few months. Over the summer, the highway trust fund will run out and soon MAP-21 will expire. Allowing Federal funding for transportation projects to run out would force States to stop ongoing projects, risking over 700,000 jobs over the next year.

The consequences for inaction are too great. It is time for Congress to step up to the plate and finally enact a long-term highway bill that reforms the trust fund and makes it solvent for years to come, because as President Reagan said: rebuilding our infrastructure is an investment in tomorrow we must make today.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source