US House Speaker Promotes Transportation Projects

Speaker John Boehner spoke in favor of pumping federal money into transportation construction and speeding regulatory review of those projects.

LOUISVILLE, KY (November 1, 2011) -- U.S. House Speaker John Boehner spoke in favor Monday of pumping federal money into transportation construction and speeding regulatory review of those projects -- comments that seemed to resonate in a region longing for new bridges to ease traffic snarls.

Boehner drew sustained applause from a crowd at the University of Louisville as the Republican speaker from Ohio touted transportation construction as a place where a fractious Congress could reach common ground in trying to jump-start job growth.

"Everybody believes we have infrastructure deficiencies and more needs to be spent to repair, replace and in some cases build new infrastructure," Boehner said in a speech that focused on the sluggish economy and persistent unemployment.

"The problem is nobody wants to pay for it."

(More on Boehner's construction message . . . )

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