Washington, D.C. – Edward Wytkind, president of the Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD) issues the following statement about Congress’s passage of HR 5021:
“Yesterday Congress acted to treat the insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund as little more than a pothole needing a quick patch. While the legislation passed yesterday was urgently necessary, it does nothing to help America rebuild our deteriorating transportation infrastructure and our economy over the long term.
“More than anything, what Congress demonstrated yesterday is that the dysfunction in Washington has become even more pervasive, spreading into one of the most basic duties of government: investing in and making possible the freight and passenger transportation network that a modern economy demands. Especially as millions of Americans still suffer from chronic joblessness and – as today’s jobs report reminds us – the employment rate remains anemic, it is disappointing that too many elected officials once again neglected to pass a multi-year surface transportation bill that modernizes the arteries of our economy and creates the jobs the U.S. needs.”
CONTACT: Elizabeth Weinberg, elizabethw@ttd.org, 202-628-9262