Staff Photo by Dan Henry/Chattanooga Times Free Press
Congressman-elect Chuck Fleischmann speaks to Mayor Ron Littlefield after meeting with top city and county leaders Monday at the Hamilton County Courthouse before heading to Washington, D.C., in January.U.S. Rep.-elect Chuck Fleischmann pledged Monday to work for more federal funding for the new Chickamauga Lock, a high-speed rail link through Chattanooga and road and bridge improvements in East Tennessee.
But the newly elected Republican told city and county leaders that such projects need to go through the regular congressional appropriations process and not be financed through earmarks.
“Part of the big spending debate in Washington is to make sure that government does the things that we think they should be doing like infrastructure and roads and not be doing some things that they ought not to be doing,” Fleischmann said. “Transportation is a priority.”
Fleischmann said America’s roads “are in deplorable condition,” and he criticized the current Democratic-controlled House for not yet adopting a budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
“Every time you don’t maintain a road and then there is a problem, it costs a lot more to fix it,” he said.