Rep. Andrew Barkis praises bipartisan supplemental transportation budget proposal

Mr Speaker we've heard a series of words describe the budget that is in front of you today leadership commitment responsible collaborative teamwork bipartisan Mr Speaker it takes all of that to put forth something that the entirety of the state of Washington can be proud of Mr Speaker I'm very proud of the role that I have to serve as a ranking member on the transportation committee and Mr Speaker as you know as a member of that committee we have a lot of challenges in front of us we have a duty as you've heard about maintaining and preserving the infrastructure that is so critical to everybody here for maintaining and making sure that we have the strongest most well equipped state patrol in the nation make sure that we have the best Marine highway system in the nation these are challenges Mr Speaker our state has grown Mr Speaker leaves in bounds over the last several years and the demands and pressures that we've seen put upon the infrastructure has really stretched us thin and we talk about Revenue we talk about delivering projects and we talk about all the big things big projects you heard the Gateway you know about the 520 405 Highway 18 all these big projects but Mr Speaker what I'm proud of within this budget work is working within our means working within the Appropriations and the dollars and the revenues that come in to the best of our abilities to make sure that we can deliver to the people on the commitments that we have made Mr Speaker when we walked in the door here on January 8th we had a lot of bad news during the interim about some of these big projects just on the heels of the great work that we did only a few months previous and Mr Speaker usually in a supplemental year you just make some little adjustments here and there but once again we were faced with a daunting task of having to manage these limited resources with the big challenges of all the things that we had learned but Mr Speaker all those words I said before are the reason I can stand here today and ask for your yes vote on a very good budget for this state because we were able to deal with those issues we held to our commitments like the good gentleman from the East side said about the North South Freeway Mr Speaker we can't remove something from there and put it over here that is not holding to the commitments for the entirety of the state Mr Speaker we have projects that have been in the works for years and years and we have to stay on the course with those otherwise we will just have the same issues that we will face with costs and labor and everything else if we don't working within our means Mr Speaker probably the proudest thing I have about this budget looking at it from that fiscal perspective but Mr Speaker I always say that leadership starts at the top and you couldn't have what we have today if we didn't have a great leader at the top and that is a good gentleman from the 27th the chair of the transportation committee you see Mr Speaker you can't have all of those things and we can't accomplish what we accomplish without that great leadership and as you heard from other members today a person who is willing to listen to take your ideas to be collaborative that's great leadership Mr Speaker we can see that reflective in the product before you now there's no doubt Mr Speaker we have a lot of work ahead and the days ahead to make sure that we can make the best possible product in the in the end but I'm confident that this is the best product this is the right budget for you Mr Speaker and I am confident that that leadership will prevail and I'm confident that the great team and the phenomenal staff that we have will continue to work in the days ahead to make sure that we can do that Mr Speaker I asked for you yes vote on this Transportation budget today thank you