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Into law. because we all want to get to a solution here. and we realize the clock is ticking. but i think that, for me, frames the issue about as well as i can. >> thank you. very well said. you know, one of the reasons i'm here, chuck, so importantly, is exactly that. i mean, normally you wouldn't have a president coming to this meeting. normally, frankly, you'd have democrat, republicans and maybe nothing would get done. you know, our system lends itself to not getting things done. and i hear so much about the old earmark system. how there was a great friendliness when you had earmarks. but ...

Democrats. and, you know, in the old days of earmarks, you can say what you want about certain presidents and others where they all talk about they went out to dinner at night and all got along and passed bills. that was an earmark system. and maybe we should think about it and we have to put better control because it got a little bit out of hand. but maybe that brings people together. because our system right now, the way it's set up, will never bring people together. i think we're going to get this done, daca. i think we're going to get -- i hope we're going to get infrastructure done in the...

And how there was a great friendliness when you had earmarks. of course they had other problems, but maybe all of you should start thinking about going back to a form of earmarks. [ laughter ] no? well, you should do it. and i'm there with you. this system really lends itself to not getting along. it lends itself to hostility and anger and they hate the republicans and the democrats and in the old days, can you say what you want about certain presidents and others where they went out to dinner at night and all got along and passed bills. that was an earmark system and we should think about it ...

One of the reasons why they're running out of money early. this really has the smell of a political sell job. they obviously are able to predict with a fair degree of precision the cash flows involved with this. so if they're running out of money early, this is a planned running out of money. somebody should be fired. there should be complete restructuring of this. the highway trust fund exists -- it was created by eisenhower for the purpose of an interstate highway system. it has turned into a political honey pot. practically anyplace around america, sometimes i'm driving on the bud schuster ...

And i have their website up behind me. it's an annual thing. and sometimes there are questions are they right or wrong to call something pork. here's a figure that struck me. i have this on for you because it's about the of number of anonymous projects. more than 9,000 projects that they ended up listing here nape said they found 81 anonymous projects, tony, worth a total of $6.5 billion. i'm just going to tell you some of the things that are in here that might be striking to a lot of people. cnn.com through the afternoon. $200,000 for the washington national opera for set design and installat...