REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AND THE VICE¹ PRESIDENT
ON THE AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT

U.S. Department of Transportation
Washington, D.C.

11:52 A.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, Mr. Secretary.  Mr. President.  (Applause.)  I think the Secretary perfectly² summed up at his confirmation³ hearing what we're doing here, and I want to quote him.  He said, "The most compelling reason for infrastructure⁴ investment is that economic" -- excuse me -- "it is the listing of not only economic, but social benefits that get brought as a consequence of decades" -- "for decades and for generations."

The bottom line is what we're doing here is not just for today, it's going to last well beyond this time; and that's exactly why we're here.  The Recovery Act is being implemented⁵ with speed, transparency, and accountability.  And don't take my word for it, just look at what's happening here today.  We're creating -- not only creating new jobs, we're saving jobs that were about to be put on hold; we're making it easy for folks to get to work, those who have a job; and we're improving the nation's infrastructure, all at the same time.

Just eight weeks into this, and we're already seeing -- beginning to see exactly how the Recovery Act and the Department of Transportation are building the economy of the future and making life better for communities everywhere, not just in Maryland or Virginia -- which we're going to talk about here.  In Virginia, the Department of Transportation is already bidding $176 million for paving bridge and -- road and bridge projects funded by the Recovery Act, with another $75 million of highway jobs expected later this week.

In Missouri, by late March $1.5 million in Recovery Act funds had already been awarded to Missouri construction companies to provide gravel⁶ to the Forest Service roads damaged by extreme weather over the past few years.

I see stories like this everywhere I go, and Ray and I have been going around the country pointing this out.  Around this country we're making deep investments in our infrastructure, making sure it's sound, secure, and able to handle the full-speed-ahead progress that this economy has underway now.  We're stimulating⁷ billions of dollars in economic activity; we're creating millions of new jobs, and breaking ground on a brighter economic future.

Folks, the road to recovery must, quite literally⁸, be repaved.  And with the leadership of Secretary LaHood and President Barack Obama, we're doing just that.  Each and every day we're making that road a little bit smoother and much easier to travel.

And ladies and gentlemen, it's now my pleasure to introduce the President of the United States, Barack Obama.  (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, everybody.  I hope everybody had a wonderful Easter.  I just came from the Easter Egg Roll, and it was a spectacular -- spectacular outing.  All the kids were out there having fun and it reminds us of why we do the work we do.

     Before I discuss the purpose of my visit to the Department of Transportation today, I want to take a moment to say how pleased I am about the rescue of Captain Phillips and his safe return to the USS Boxer⁹ this weekend.  (Applause.)  His safety has been our principal concern, and I know this came as a welcome relief to his family and his crew.

     I had a chance to talk to his wife yesterday and, as she put it, she couldn't imagine a better Easter than seeing his safe return.  And I am very proud of the efforts of the U.S. military and many other departments and agencies that worked tirelessly to resolve this situation.  I share our nation's admiration¹⁰ for Captain Phillips' courage and leadership and selfless concern for his crew.

     And I want to be very clear that we are resolved to halt the rise of privacy [sic] in that region.  And to achieve that goal we're going to have to continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks, we have to continue to be prepared to confront them when they arise, and we have to ensure that those who commit acts of piracy¹¹ are held accountable for their crimes.

     Now, as we work to ensure America's safety out on the seas, I want to discuss what we're doing to restore economic security here at home -- to revitalize our nation's infrastructure and create good jobs across America.

     It has been nearly three months since I first took office, and I think it's fair to say that we've been busy.  Faced with an extraordinary economic crisis, we've responded with extraordinary action -- action that's both unprecedented¹² in scale and unprecedented in its speed.

     We developed plans to stabilize¹³ our housing market, to unfreeze our credit markets, and to ensure the survival of our auto¹⁴ industry in this new century.  We passed a budget that cuts our deficit¹⁵ in half while making investments to spur long-term growth and lasting¹⁶ prosperity.  And because we know that people are hurting right now, and we need to create jobs and get money into people's pockets right now, we passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the most sweeping¹⁷ economic recovery plan in history:  A plan to save or create 3.5 million jobs, putting Americans back to work doing the work America needs done -- and to give a tax cut to 95 percent of working Americans.

     Today, I think it's safe to say that this plan is beginning to work.  We see it in the clean energy companies rehiring workers; in police departments cancelling planned layoffs¹⁸; in health care clinics planning to expand to care for more folks in need.  We see it in the 120 million families who are already taking home larger paychecks because of our Making Work Pay tax cut.

And we see it particularly in the work of this department --in the plans underway to rebuild crumbling¹⁹ roads and bridges, modernize²⁰ our airports and shipyards, develop high-speed rail networks and restore aging public transit²¹ systems.  All told, we are making the largest new investment in America's infrastructure since President Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System back in the 1950s.

But what is most remarkable²² about this effort -- and what I'm here to talk about today -- isn't just the size of our investment, or the number of projects we're investing in -- it's how quickly, efficiently²³, and responsibly those investments have been made.

Today, because these projects are getting approved more quickly than we thought, thanks to in large part the outstanding work of the TIGER team and folks here at the Department of Transportation, and because these projects are costing less than we thought, we can utter a sentence rarely heard in recent years:  This government effort is coming in ahead of schedule and under budget.  (Applause.)

Now, think about it.  We passed the recovery plan less than two months ago.  Two weeks later, I came here to DOT to announce that we would be investing $28 billion to rebuild and repair our highways, roads and bridges.  Work on the very first project -- resurfacing Route 650 in Silver Springs [sic], Maryland -- began that very same day.  People who'd been out of a job found themselves being called back to work.

And some of the crews are here today, and we want to thank them, and we're proud of them, because they're making the roads safer and some of your commutes²⁵ a little bit better, and at the same time they're doing what they've always done, working really hard to support their families and living out the American Dream.  So we appreciate them.  Thank you.  (Applause.)

About a week later, we had approved 500 more projects.  Two weeks after that, we had approved another 1,000 projects.  And today, I'm proud to announce that we have approved the 2000th project -- a project to widen an interstate and rebuild an overpass²⁶ in Portage, Michigan, improving safety, reducing congestion²⁷ and boosting local businesses.

This project will start this summer, creating an estimated 900 jobs right away -- and it will go into 2011, creating nearly twice that many jobs altogether before it's finished.  So I want to acknowledge Governor Granholm, both for her leadership on this project and for her tireless work to strengthen Michigan's economy.  And I'm pleased that Joe Biden, who's overseeing our recovery efforts, will be attending the groundbreaking for this project in June.

Now, some may have thought it would take months to get to this point.  But in part because of the hard work and commitment of the people in this department, we approved these 2,000 projects in just 41 days.

So taken together, these projects will reduce the congestion that costs us nearly $80 billion a year; it will save some of the 14,000 people who lose their lives each year because of bad roads and driving conditions; it will create good jobs that pay well and can't be shipped overseas.  By the end of next year, our investments in highway projects alone will create or save 150,000 jobs.  I want to repeat that:  150,000 jobs, most of them in the private sector²⁸.

I'm pleased that work on some of these projects has already started, and that many more will be underway by this summer.  But I want to be very clear that while we're doing this with speed, we're also doing it with care.  We've acted quickly, because our economy, losing hundreds of thousands of jobs each month, means we don't have a minute to waste.  And we've acted with care because we don't have a single taxpayer²⁹ dollar to waste either.

And that's why I appointed a proven and aggressive inspector³⁰ general to root out waste and fraud.  That's why we created a website called recovery.gov, so you can see exactly where your tax dollars are going, and soon you'll be able to click on the transportation section and track the progress of every project underway.

And that's why I'm pleased to hear that in state after state across America, competition for these projects is so fierce, and contractors³¹ are doing such a good job cutting costs, that projects are consistently coming in under budget.  The final bid for one road project in Connecticut was $8.4 million less than the state budgeted for.  Another one in Louisiana was $4.7 million less.  A project at BWI Airport will be completed for $8 million less than expected.  Bids for projects in North Carolina have been 19 percent under budget.  Colorado is reporting bids up to 30 percent less than they expected.  And the officials in California have seen bids that are close to half as much as they had projected.

And because these projects are proceeding³² so efficiently, we now have more recovery dollars to go around.  And that means we can fund more projects, revitalize more of our infrastructure, put more people back to work, and ensure that taxpayers³³ get more value for their dollars.

Now, I have no illusion about how much work lies ahead and how hard it will be.  The road to recovery is long; we will undoubtedly³⁴ make some mistakes, we'll face some setbacks along the way, there will be some projects that don't work the way we want them to.  But it is now clear that we're heading in the right direction.  It's now clear that day by day, project by project, we are making progress.

We're doing what we've always done in this country.  As President Johnson said more than 40 years ago when he signed the legislation creating this department, the Department of Transportation, "America's history is a history of her transportation" -- of railroads that pushed frontiers, and waterways and highways that opened up markets, airplanes that connected us to one another and to the world.

Throughout our history, there have been times when a generation of Americans seized the chance to remake the face of this nation.  And this is one of those times.  And that's what we're doing today -- building a 21st century infrastructure that will create jobs, spur growth, and sustain an economy that creates shared and lasting prosperity.

So thank you to the folks here at DOT; you're doing an outstanding job.  Thanks to Ray LaHood for being a terrific leader of the department.  And thank you to Joe Biden for helping³⁵ to drive this thing home.  And thanks to all the workers who are standing²⁴ behind us.  We don't want to keep them too long.  They've already got their hard hats.  (Laughter.)  They are going to go straight into their cars and they're going to go back to work.  So, thank you, everybody.  (Applause.)

END                                              
12:05 P.M. EDT