Blog Post

The Transportation Committee is currently holding a hearing on structurally deficient bridges. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), of 597,340 bridges in the United States, 73,784 are structurally deficient. In light of the recent tragic collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Members of Congress and their constituents have been working to obtain as much information as possible about the condition of bridges in their districts.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the General Accounting Report on Iraq, which shows that Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 required benchmarks for political and military progress:

On Labor Day, we pay tribute to the talent, intellect, and entrepreneurial spirit of hard-working Americans, who through their labor have made our nation strong.

This holiday is fundamentally different from all the others we celebrate as a nation. As Samuel Gompers said many years ago: 'All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another.

From the Education and Labor Committee:

This Labor Day, Let's Redouble Effort to Improve Worker Safety, Says Chairman Miller

Miller also launches interactive map of workplace fatalities

Rep. Kendrick Meek of the Speaker's 30 Something Working Group returned yesterday from a Congressional Delegation trip to Iraq. He shares his views saying, "The American people are asking for our troops to come home. I think that should be the goal of the Congress - for our troops to come home. I think that there are some Members of Congress who feel that we should be there as long as we need to be there.

The President is demanding tens of billions more dollars for the war in Iraq despite non-partisan conclusions, such as the draft GAO report and the recent National Intelligence Estimate, that the Iraqi government has failed to achieve required reforms.

As in the past, President Bush stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the facts on the ground about the sectarian civil war in Iraq or the growing bipartisan opposition to his failed policies.

The Washington Post reported today that President Bush is preparing a request to Congress for $50 billion more to fund his failed policies in Iraq -- policies that have cost the American people dearly both in lives and taxpayer dollars. The American people are demanding a New Direction on the Iraq war not another quarterly invoice. It is time to wind down this war and begin to bring our troops home safely and soon.

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