Last Friday night, after shoving our government to the edge of shutting down, House Republicans pushed a bill in the 11^th hour that keeps the government open on the backs of working people.  Among cuts to important housing programs, this one-week funding measure cuts $1.5 billion from high-speed rail investment and $280 million in New Starts transit grants, the very program that our area needs to bring BART to Silicon Valley.

As a consistent advocate of BART to Silicon Valley and high-speed rail, and the jobs these projects will bring to our valley, I could not support this one-week, stop-gap funding bill. 

Along with my Democratic colleagues, I advocated for a clean temporary funding bill to give President Obama, Senate Leader Reid, and Speaker Boehner more time to present an agreement to Congress and the American people.  At the very least, we should have been allowed more than a half hour before shut down to consider these billions of dollars in cuts.  At a time when our economy is starting to show signs of recovery, it baffles me that Republicans only agreed to keep the government open at a cost of $333 million per day to job-creating transportation investments and stressed housing programs. 

As a Member of both the House Budget Committee and the House Appropriations Committee, I will fight tooth and nail to protect the BART Silicon Valley Project and high-speed rail investments in these budget fights.