President Obama: "Rebuild Our
Transportation Infrastructure" ...back >
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July 1, 2014 - President Barack
Obama braved a sweltering Washington, DC summer afternoon to travel to
the Georgetown Waterfront, where he delivered a 15-minute speech
criticizing Republican obstructionism and seeking to push Congress to
replenish the Highway Trust Fund. "If this Congress does not act
by the end of the summer, the Highway Trust Fund will run out," Obama
stated. "There won’t be any money there. All told, nearly
700,000 jobs could be at risk next year." Obama also reprised the
"economic patriotism" theme he introduced during the 2012
campaign. "We could do so much more if we just rallied around an
economic
patriotism, a sense that our job is to get things done as one nation
and as one
people," he declared. Obama said he will "be spending a lot of
time over the next several weeks and months getting out there with
ordinary folks," and he called on the American people to "put pressure
on this town to actually get
something done." [transcript]
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Secretary of Transportation
Anthony Foxx attended the event. According to a graph on the
Department of Transportation website, the
Highway Account of the Highway Trust Fund is projected to reach
insolvency by the beginnning of September: |
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Specifically, the administration
is advocating the GROW
AMERICA Act (Generating Renewal, Opportunity, and Work with
Accelerated Mobility, Efficiency, and Rebuilding of Infrastructure and
Communities throughout America), a $302 billion, four-year
transportation reauthorization proposal. |
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