2010 CO Senate Debates: on Budget & Economy

Michael Bennet: Stimulus bill avoided Depression; now we need infrastructure

BENNET: Absolutely not. In fact, what I was saying is true, because we have $13 trillion of debt on the balance sheet and nothing to show for it. We have not even had the decency to maintain the assets that our parents and grandparents built for us: our roads, our bridges, our wastewater systems, our sewer systems; by the way, those weren't Bolsheviks, those weren't socialists that built those things for us--much less build the infrastructure we need for the 21st century.

Q: But the president acknowledges that infrastructure spending has not been really dealt with in this stimulus bill.

BENNET: Transportation, transit and energy infrastructure as well. That stimulus package saved us from going into the second Great Depression. But that's hardly enough.

Ken Buck: We spent $787B on stimulus with nothing to show for it

Bennet said the stimulus bill hasn't been more effective because the U.S. recession was even worse than initially believed.

Michael Bennet: Stimulus bill limited because recession worse than expected

Bennet said the stimulus bill hasn't been more effective because the U.S. recession was even worse than initially believed. "But 37% of that legislation was in tax cuts," he argued, a claim that Buck's supporters scoffed at.