Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Thank you.

Many Americans watched in horror as the drama unfolded on the I-35 bridge, the aftermath of crashing into the waves of water below and taking out a multitude of cars and taking lives and causing people to be injured, and also resulting in an economic detriment to that area that needed that bridge in order to continue to conduct business. We can look at it sterilely on the TV from a distant location, but we should realize that the same thing that happened to you guys in Minnesota can happen to us in Georgia with our own bridges that are in disrepair due to deferred maintenance.

This is something that can happen not just in Georgia, not just in Minnesota, but all across the land. And it doesn't have to be that way, because as President Obama has proposed in the American Jobs Act--or as a part of the American Jobs Act--there is money--a small amount, but any amount is better than none--for infrastructure. I think it's $50 billion. That infrastructure, in addition to helping with our public safety issues--health, safety, and well-being of the people--would also create jobs. So we're killing more than one bird with one stone by passing the American Jobs Act.

Not one of my friends on the other side of the aisle has been able to put forth any rationale for not considering any part of that Jobs Act. We did, I'll give them credit, pass something last week having to do with veterans. They just could not find it within their hearts to avoid voting for that. But if there was some way that they could, they would have.

They are insisting that the tax cuts to the working people of this country, the payroll tax, they want that to be paid for. But nobody said anything last year about paying for the extension of the Bush tax cuts.