UPDATED: Obama Reprises Bridge Speech In DC
President Obama will take a short trip across the District of Columbia this morning to make a familiar pitch involving a component of his American Jobs Act.
The president will deliver remarks just feet from the base of the Key Bridge, which spans the Potomac River, connecting Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood to an area of Arlington, Va. known as Rosslyn. There, Obama will call on Congress to pass the Rebuild America Jobs Act, a section of his broader bill aimed at boosting domestic hiring.
According to the White House, the package includes $50 billion “in immediate investments for highways, transit, rail and aviation.” The bill also sets aside $10 billion for the creation of a national infrastructure bank. The Senate, which has so far twice been unable to bring the entire bill and a section focused on hiring public sector workers to a final vote, will take up the measure on Thursday.
The Key Bridge is one of 215 bridges in the DC Metro area to be rated structurally deficient by the group Transportation for America. Back in September, Obama delivered a speech at the base of the Brent Spence Bridge, which he described as being “functionally obsolete.” The bridge connects Ohio to Kentucky, states represented by the two leading Republicans in Congress, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell.
During his speech, Obama directly called out the pair for opposing his plan. “There’s no reason for Republicans in Congress to stand in the way of more construction projects,” he said. “There’s no reason to stand in the way of more jobs.”
Though Democrats currently control the DC and Northern Virginia areas, the president will likely mix some shots at the GOP into his speech today. After all, it will be his last chance this week to do so before he departs this evening for France, site of the G20 economic summit taking place tomorrow and Friday.
Geoff Holtzman
During a nearly 16-minute speech, Obama said, “it makes absolutely no sense” why Republicans and some Democrats are not on board with passing the infrastructure portion of the Jobs Act.
He thanked Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) for leading the charge to get the measure through Congress, and attacked McConnell, Boehner and House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for opposing the package despite their past support for infrastructure spending.
The president directly chided Boehner for holding a pair of votes in the last week on non-jobs items.
“John, what have you been debating? You’ve been debating a commemorative coin for baseball?”
Last week, the House passed the National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin Act by a vote of 416-3. MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola reports that “the legislation authorizes the U.S. Mint to produce a series of commemorative coins honoring the 75th anniversary of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, located in Cooperstown, N.Y., beginning Jan. 1, 2015.”
Yesterday, by a vote of 396-9, the lower chamber passed a resolution reaffirming “In God We Trust” as the national motto.
“You had legislation reaffirming that “In God We Trust” is our motto?” Obama asked. “That’s not putting us back to work…”I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work.”
The White House says this particular section of the bill “could support a minimum of approximately 5,000 local jobs” in the District.
Obama later invoked the words of former Republican president Ronald Reagan, who once said that “rebuilding our infrastructure is common sense.”
“Since when do we have Republicans voting against Ronald Reagan’s ideas?” Obama asked.
A White House official said the crowd that gathered to watch Obama speak was comprised of a few hundred people, including out-of-work construction workers and representatives from labor and business groups.
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