President Obama: "Rebuild Our Transportation Infrastructure"  ...back >
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]


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:
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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