[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 77 (Tuesday, June 4, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H3089-H3093]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
JOBS IN AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Wenstrup). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from California (Mr.
Garamendi) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority
leader.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, tonight we want to talk about jobs in
America, we want to talk about how we can rebuild the great American
manufacturing sector, and we also want to spend some time talking about
a very special part of the American economy, and that is the
infrastructure upon which that economy can grow and prosper. So there
are many pieces to this puzzle about rebuilding the economic strength
of this Nation.
{time} 2010
Much of it comes down to what we call the Make It in America agenda.
It's an agenda to rebuild the great manufacturing sector of this
Nation. That's where the middle class found its strength. That's where
the middle class grew following World War II. Unfortunately, in the
last 15 years or so, we've seen a decline from some 20 million
Americans in manufacturing down to perhaps 11 million.
In recent months, we've seen a resurgence in part due to some changes
in law that we've put in place that end tax breaks that American
corporations received when they sent jobs overseas--really foolish tax
breaks. We ended many of those, and we have a few more to go. What we
want to do is give manufacturers, American corporations and others, who
want to on shore bring jobs back to America, we want to give them a tax
break.
So the Make It in America agenda is about rebuilding that great
American manufacturing base. There are many different parts to it. Part
of it is the infrastructure system.
I was talking to one of my friends from the Connecticut area just a
few moment ago, and he said, Listen, I can't be with you tonight, but
what I want you to say is we had a terrible Amtrak train wreck in
Connecticut just a week ago, and we think it may have been due to bad
track.
That's the infrastructure, folks. We really need to build that train
system here in America, the infrastructure for it.
I'm going to put up one more sign here before I call upon my friend
from New York. Here it is. Now, that's a beautiful locomotive. That's
an American-made locomotive. So this is manufacturing. This is an
American-made locomotive by a German company, Siemens, one of the great
industrial companies in this world. They bid on almost a half-a-
billion-dollar project that was in the stimulus bill for 70 locomotives
for Amtrak that had to be American made. This German company said half
a billion dollars, American made, we can do that. They set up a factory
in Sacramento, California, and that's the first American-made
locomotive in many, many decades, or generations, and it's a beauty.
It's electric. I think it's about 7,500 horsepower, and it's going to
be used here on the East Coast and on that Boston to Washington, D.C.,
track. Hopefully, it'll be rebuilt.
Joining me tonight in this discussion about infrastructure and jobs
and Make It in America is my friend from New York, Paul Tonko. We're
redoing the East-West show.
Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, thank you for leading us in this
hour discussion focusing on jobs--from a manufacturing sector, jobs
from an investment. They come about in an investment in research, R&D,
and they come about through innovation.
We have talked about this many times on this floor, that we come from
districts that have that keen sense of vision about how to do it
smarter, which can be that difference in the competitive edge that our
businesses require in an international marketplace.
What I like about the investment through this package, Make It in
America, is an across-the-board holistic approach, incentives that
provide everything from encouragement to the local industries to
retrofit and rebuild their manufacturing processes; to investment in
the workforce, making certain that those cutting-edge skills and trades
are being developed within our workers, making certain that we have
that human infrastructure up and ready to go so as to be robustly
competitive; and also talking about the investment in this ideas
economy, which speaks to the sophistication of our American society.
The intellectual capacity that is harnessed to produce jobs is an
awesome measure that allows us to maintain a great bit of hope that we
can robustly respond to the needs of today's economy, an international
economy, and be a winning agent out there. And it happens with this
investment. That's how we grow jobs.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, you have come to a very important point
here, and that is: Before you came to Congress, you headed up a
consortium in New York that did precisely that, didn't you?
Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. I was at the New York State Energy Research
and Development Authority, and we saw what public-private matches were
about. We were able to deal with the ideas economy. We came up with new
ways to harness energy, to create energy efficiency in the outcome, and
by so doing, innovation and research equals jobs, good-paying jobs that
allow us, again, to have that cutting edge of cleverness, of having a
thoughtful way to do things. The smart factor can win those contracts
on an international scale. So I'm thrilled about what we can do through
research.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, the Make It in America agenda has many, many
parts to it. It has a research piece. It has an innovation piece. It
has some tax issues to it. All of these have been packaged and pulled
together by our leader, Steny Hoyer, who I see has joined us on the
floor.
Maryland is on the East Coast. California is on the West Coast, so
now we've augmented our East Coast-West Coast show. Mr. Hoyer, thank
you so very much for your leadership on Make It in America.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for taking the floor, and I thank
the gentleman from New York for joining in. I think that we are on the
cusp of a real expansion and reinvigoration of our manufacturing sector
in this country for a lot of reasons that I point out around the
country, and I know the two of you do as well.
First of all, salaries are going up overseas. That's good news for
them and, frankly, for us.
Furthermore, as we all know, it's costing a lot more to ship goods
back to the biggest market in the world than it used to.
Thirdly, I think both of you have talked about energy. We are about
to become an energy-independent Nation with energy that has a cost less
than most of our competitors around the world, so we have become, in a
relatively short period of time, I think, in many respects, the venue
of choice for someone who wants to either expand or establish
manufacturing here in this country or, frankly, continue to grow things
in this country.
As you know, our Make It in America agenda really has four component
parts. One is having a plan. Nobody talks about this more than John
Garamendi of California, and God bless you for that. Thank you so much
for your leadership on this issue. And Paul Tonko from New York also
has been very focused on this issue, and I thank him for that.
[[Page H3090]]
The second part of the agenda is to not only have a plan, but be
focused on exports, be focused on building markets for small, medium,
and large businesses. Large businesses have the resources to look for
markets themselves. In many respects, small- and medium-sized
businesses do not, but they are producing products that they can sell
not only here but around the world.
President Obama was in Baltimore not too long ago at a relatively
small company, Ellicott Dredges, in Baltimore. They have sold dredges
to over 100 countries in the world, and they are making those dredges
in America.
The third part is to encourage bringing jobs home, not sending them
overseas. It makes no sense to have a tax policy that gives benefits to
people who are sending job overseas while we have millions of Americans
who can't find jobs. So what we want to do is incentivize bringing jobs
home by giving a tax break for not only bringing jobs home, but
creating jobs here in America.
Lastly--you both referenced this--we need to make sure that we have a
21st century workforce. As a result, we need to invest, as the
gentleman from New York just said--I am just repeating his words, but I
use them all the time as well--we need to invest in education,
innovation, and infrastructure. That's what helps you grow American
manufacturing jobs. And Americans, when they're polled, over 85 percent
of them say, if America is going to be the kind of country we want it
to be, it will be because we make things here in the United States of
America. And the ``Made in America'' label is seen all over the world.
In fact, the ``Made in America'' label is a very popular label all over
the world.
So I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) and
the gentleman from New York for their leadership and their focus on
what is critical: if the next generation of Americans is going to make
it, that we provide the kinds of jobs and opportunity, as well as
education and investment in innovation, that they need to continue to
live in the most successful economic country on the face of the Earth.
I thank the gentleman for his leadership.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Hoyer, thank you so very much. As I've heard you
say over and over again, America will make it when we Make It in
America.
Mr. HOYER. Amen.
{time} 2020
Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much for joining us.
Mr. Tonko, education, innovation, infrastructure--those are keys.
There are a couple of other keys, as Mr. Hoyer was saying. Part of it
is our tax policy, the policies that come out of this building. And we
can really do the kinds of things, laws, that really make a difference.
I put up that picture of that new Amtrak locomotive. It was a law,
the Stimulus Act, that allowed the men and women in Sacramento, some
200 of them, plus another 70 companies that are the supply chain that
supply the various parts to this locomotive to have a job.
And what happened in the stimulus bill was, okay, we're going to
spend half a billion dollars for 70 locomotives for Amtrak. But,
another sentence, they must be American-made, using American taxpayer
money to buy American-made equipment.
So we now have this manufacturing plant in Sacramento. We now have
men and women employed, not only in Sacramento, but around the Nation,
making the various parts for this most advanced locomotive.
So it's public policy. I have a bill in that does that. It requires
that if we're going to build the infrastructure and locomotives, buses,
trains, roads, bridges, and use American taxpayer money, then we must
be buying American-made products. Pretty simple stuff. It's the Buy
America, and it creates jobs in America.
I know you have several pieces of legislation that you're sponsoring
and supporting. You may want to bring those up. We'll talk about them
for a few moments.
Mr. TONKO. Sure. The wordsmithing that you talk about is so critical.
The addition of language that clarifies or specifically states ``made
in America'' as an outcome, very critical to the legislation. And two
things were happening. The wordsmithing didn't happen as tenderly as it
should have for American workers, but there was also a disinvestment in
manufacturing as a sector of our economy. And agriculture was ignored.
Manufacturing was ignored.
Service sector was paid attention to; and then more narrowly,
financial services got great attention. But we know that story: turn
your back as government, say go function as you choose, and create
derivatives to avoid government overview and avoid the watchdog. And we
saw trillions lost to American households because of that failure.
Here there's a conscious attempt to say, no, we're not going to pay
to have you ship jobs offshore. Yes, we're going to pay to have you
bring them back. Yes, we're going to invest in workers. Yes, we're
going to invest in research to develop new processes.
I have a bill that deals with energy efficiency that allows for us to
enhance the efficiency of turbines that are being produced in
Schenectady, that are being made in Schenectady at GE, and then
exported to the markets around the world.
Routinely, I am showcasing manufacturing in my district so that the
media, as a partner, can showcase what's happening right in our very
neighborhoods, and that the story fully, complete and told to everyone,
is that we're also exporting from Tech Valley, New York. That is so
important for people to know, and we need to enhance that.
We need to provide for the reinforcement, the underpinning of support
through language in bills, resources that are attached to various
appropriations bills, and pointing a focus on American manufacturing.
I saw what happened through an incubator program at RPI, Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, in my district, where a local manufacturer was
able to revisit his process, his manufacturing process. They upgraded
it, went to a community college in the district, Hudson Valley
Community College, which trained the workers from this facility how to
use this new automated piece; and now they've added workers who are
specifically trained on this automated concept. They're winning
contracts, and Kintz Plastics in Schoharie, New York, in the upstate
New York region, a rural county setting, by the way, is strengthened by
all that investment.
That's what it takes. It's a focus, laser-sharp focus on how to meet
the various elements of the equation that will take us to a winning
effort. And it's straightforward, it's thought out, it's not mindless.
Instead of issues of ignoring manufacturing, providing for
sequestration that automatically cuts programs where there ought to be
investment, let's move forward with a sound budget. Let's move forward
with an agenda that produces jobs.
The President has introduced a package that calls for a budget that's
real, that displaces sequestration. He knows of the damage that that
would do to the economy and to the investment in manufacturing that is
needed now in a very targeted way.
So this is a thoughtful, mindful, analytical, academically driven
agenda that really speaks to the needs of all sorts of efficiency
operations, turbines that will be built to better scale, that will
allow for better outcomes and save us, in the process, save jobs in the
process, grow jobs, and then provide for more productivity on the local
scene.
So, I think it's incredibly successful when we just apply simple
logic to the situation.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, I certainly agree about logic and the
sometimes lack of logic, the sequestration, which is no sense,
otherwise known as nonsense, but extraordinarily damaging.
But you're talking about Rensselaer and what came out of that. I'll
give you an example in my own district, Davis, California, University
of California-Davis. And here's where your discussion really meets the
road.
The engineering school did computerized programming for machine tools
and did some very advanced research on how to do that. One of the
Japanese companies that manufactured machine tools, one of the most
advanced machine tool manufacturers in the world, Mori Seiki, came over
to University of
[[Page H3091]]
California-Davis, talked to the engineers and the students and the
professors that were putting together this computerized system for
machine tools and said, we want to be part of that.
And so they began to use it and realized that what they needed to do
was to be right next to the research so that they could constantly
upgrade their machines. And they, therefore, came to Davis, California,
built a factory, hired, I think, about 120 people now; and they're
making the most advanced machine tools, computerized-driven machine
tools anywhere in the world right in Davis, California.
So we can see the connection between research, the adaptation of that
research into the manufacturing process, and then the jobs. These are
all middle class jobs and above that are now available in Davis,
California. And there are others that spin off from that, providing
certain parts of it. So these are the keys.
Now, here's where the nonsense comes in. If those are the keys to
industrial growth and manufacturing and job growth, why is it that we
have a budget that's going to be back on the floor tomorrow that
actually cuts research, cuts the educational components, cuts the job
training, the retraining that's necessary, and doesn't do anything to
create jobs except reduce the Federal support that has been critical in
this Nation's history?
Why would we do that?
I don't understand, but it's going to be back here. This is the
Republican Ryan budget. They're going to play some games tomorrow, try
to pretend that somehow it passed the Senate when, in fact, we really
need a budget conference committee so that we can sort out our
differences, so we can lay the platform for future economic growth.
But that's not what that budget does. It's exactly the opposite. It's
an austerity budget, and it cuts those things that really do create
economic growth.
Unfortunate, but we have a different agenda; and we want that agenda
of growth.
We, perhaps, ought to shift our gears here a little bit and talk
about the infrastructure component which is integral to this. You
mentioned it earlier.
I know that in your area a year ago you had tremendous flooding; and
so the infrastructure, the protection from that, you may want to pick
that up, and I'll follow along.
Mr. TONKO. Sure. Even the data compilation there, the research that's
done with the weather patterns, putting together data that's compiled
that are very compelling bits of information allow us to grow back
smarter. If we're just going to rebuild after the damages of these
consequences of Mother Nature----
Mr. GARAMENDI. It's global warming.
Mr. TONKO. Yes. And we have to be real about this. We have to take
into mind and heart the situations out there. And to just simply
rebuild and ignore the facts, if there's increased precipitation over
the last 20 years, markedly so, discernibly speaking to us, we need to
move forward accordingly. And so there should be retrofits that are
responding to the data.
{time} 2030
You don't rebuild a bridge to the same span and same height if the
water volume is growing exponentially. We have combined heat and power
situations that were impacted or survived the consequences of the
disaster of Superstorm Sandy. Should we revisit how we rebuild some of
the electric infrastructure?
So there are calls here that challenge us, that require us to do it
more wisely, to do it more effectively, and to do it with intelligent
approaches that allow us to use the innovative approaches that are
available.
I watch what is being designed here by so many of the startup
industries that are taking into account climate change, taking into
account the various elements that are impacting us, causing coastal
areas on your coast, on my coast of this country, where people need to
rebuild in a clever way and in a way that's sensitive to the demands of
the system. And the threshold years out there by which we need to
respond to climate change are quickly approaching us. Some suggest as
early as 2017. Others will stretch it to 2020. Regardless, that is
around the corner. And the call to order here is to be sophisticated in
the approach. Go forward, do it with science, do it with intellect, do
it academically, so that we can grow jobs that are going to respond to
the pressures out there that are bearing down upon us and are
undeniable. Let's get the stuff done.
Recently, I went to several college graduations in my district. And
to see the technical strength walking across that stage. From
doctorates to master's degrees to bachelor's degrees, there is great
talent being released out there. Let's put it to work so this Nation
can build upon that pioneer spirit that has always driven us. There's
just such great opportunity here. And if you believe that all the
products ever required by humankind have been conceived, prototyped,
developed, manufactured, and sold, the story is over. But we know
better than that. Products are being developed as we speak. And the
challenge to a sophisticated society such as ours, it's okay. Maybe
some of those manufactured goods that you did a century ago are now
replaced by some new, precision-oriented, heavy-duty ideas
reformulation that really allows us to be clever in the attempt.
Mr. GARAMENDI. The infrastructure system of this Nation is the
foundation for the economy. And any economic growth that we have has to
be built on a solid infrastructure. The American Society of Civil
Engineers rates the American infrastructure at a D. That's not good.
That's doggone bad, actually. You take a look at the other countries of
the world, China and others, that are building first class
infrastructure, and you come to the United States and see that we're
really not. We're way behind.
You talked about the safety issue. I have probably well over 1,100
miles of levees in my district that are flood protection. And they're
decades old. They need to be upgraded. So just in terms of the
communities being safe--for example, Natomas, in Sacramento, is an area
that I share with Congresswoman Matsui and is one of the riskiest
places in America for flooding, right behind New Orleans. We need to
upgrade those levees so that that community can, A, be safe and, B,
grow. We know that other areas in my district have the same problem.
Yet at the same time, the sequestration, to go back to that nonsense,
removes $250 million of levee improvements from the Army Corps of
Engineers' budget. So projects are going to be delayed. We're going to
have another winter and, God willing, we won't have a flood. But it
could happen. The money that is necessary to rebuild those levees is
gone.
The President has been very, very upfront about this. The President
was standing right behind us here at the State of the Union and said,
We need to build our infrastructure. And he proposed three things.
First of all, he wants to put in an additional $50 billion to be spent
in the near term--this year and the year after--to really give a major
push for America's infrastructure. He also said we need an
infrastructure bank. Europe has had one for nearly three decades, and
it really helps to finance projects that have a cash flow: sanitation
systems, water systems, toll roads, toll bridges, and the like.
The other thing that I think we ought to do is, when we spend that
money, we ought to spend it on American-made equipment. And that's what
my bill does. The other part of this is that we really need to address
the infrastructure issue with a very robust program.
I'm going to take this for just a second. For every $1 that we invest
in infrastructure, there is a boost to the economy of $1.57. So by
investing in the infrastructure, we actually grow the economy more than
a one-to-one basis. It's $1.57 for every $1 that we invest. And so you
set this kind of economic growth going on and you've built the
foundation for the future. That's what we ought to be doing.
So I ask my Republican colleagues here: pay attention. Forget about
whether it's President Obama or President whomever. Infrastructure is
really, really important. Take up what the President has suggested.
Call it a Republican suggestion. Boost the infrastructure spending in
this Nation. Put the men and women who build America's foundation back
to work so that
[[Page H3092]]
we have a foundation for economic growth and for safety.
Let's realize that we had a train wreck in Connecticut. Was it caused
by a bad track situation? Possibly. We had a bridge collapse in
Washington State. We know that that was an infrastructure maintenance
problem. We have potholes. We know that the economy of this Nation has
slowed down because of traffic jams and insufficient capacities on our
highways. And we know that we have insufficient transit systems. In New
York, you need to rebuild, as you just discussed, from Superstorm
Sandy.
Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. When you talk about roads and bridges, my home
county of Montgomery, New York, in my district, was host to a terrible
bridge collapse. We commemorated in 2012 the 25th anniversary of the
collapse of a thruway bridge that took several lives. That was a stark
reminder 25, 26 years ago. We have only accumulated more concern for
deficiencies.
So it's roads and bridges. It's rail, as you made mention. But it's
also telecommunications and utilities. You look at a system that was
engineered to be a monopoly, serving regions of energy needs for
people, and then with deregulation came the wheeling of electrons from
region to region, State to State, nation to nation. You had Canada
wheeling in electrons to New York State. We need to upgrade the system.
The interconnection devices need to be upgraded. There's new
technology. You get more efficiency, less line loss. These are the
things that are smart. And we're asking with this package that we've
talked about here tonight, let's be smart. Let's respect the hard-
earned tax dollars that are under our stewardship.
In August of 2003, I was serving in State government in New York when
we had a major collapse of the system that was driven by transmission.
An outage in Ohio triggered a collapse into New York. So Ohio put out
the lights on Broadway in New York City. And this was long-term in its
consequences. Great economic loss, great challenge to us. In the midst
of homeland security, anti-terrorist sentiment, you had a glaring,
gaping vulnerability for terrorist minds to see that weakness.
We need to invest in the infrastructure. So an infrastructure bank
bill, you're absolutely right, is a tremendously strong, powerful way
to leverage public-private sector matches to extend the opportunities,
to grow the opportunities to make investments in all sorts of
infrastructure.
I live in one of the oldest sections of the country. Our water-sewer
systems are antiquated. Our utility sectors are very, very old.
{time} 2040
The upgrades that are required, the technology that can be invested,
the cutting-edge improvements that are part and parcel to that
solution, these are incredible opportunities for us to strengthen the
outcome for businesses. We have business coming in to upstate New York
that, in one case, Global Foundries, represents some of the greatest
job growth in the world for chip manufacturing. Are they energy
intensive? You better believe they are. Do we need state-of-the-art
hookups? Do we need reliability and predictability in that capacity
that's delivered? Absolutely. So we know what the needs of business
happen to be. We know how best to respond to that. We do it through
clever, public, progressive policy that enables us to see the
worthiness of investment.
Belt tightening, we've talked about this before--waste, inefficiency,
fraud, outmoded programs undone. We belt tighten. But that is cut where
you can so that you invest where you must. And that mantra should guide
us: cut where you can so you invest where you must.
And the infrastructure requires our response. You need to move
freight. You need to move workers. You need to have safety addressed,
public safety addressed. I saw the consequences. I saw the deaths that
came from the tragic collapse of a thruway bridge in upstate New York
26 years ago. That should not be repeated. That sort of tragedy should
be avoided with any clever cost being assumed. And here we're asking
simply to put people to work.
This is not just spending money. It's investing in workers that will
make for a stronger outcome, and it provides for state-of-art
opportunities. And that's where the business partnership is with this
country. If you're going to sit there and say we're just going to cut
our way to prosperity, cut our way to deficit reduction, and cut our
way to job growth, it's not going to happen that way.
Mr. GARAMENDI. No, it certainly won't. You've been talking about
bridge collapses, the bridge that collapsed in the Twin Cities,
Minnesota and Wisconsin, lives lost. We're continuing to see the
infrastructure, bridges and others, unable to really carry the modern
loads that are there, rusting and falling down. We need to really
address that.
You did raise an essential point about the electric grid, that power
infrastructure, the electric power infrastructure of this Nation,
critically important. We need to make the investments there. And we're
also making--Mr. Hoyer talked about the energy independence that we're
moving towards in the United States. One part of that is the natural
gas that is now being more readily available and at a reasonable price,
and we're seeing the repowering of many of the coal-fired power plants
using natural gas, which also reduces the greenhouse gas emissions from
coal. All of that is good.
I want to pick up another area of infrastructure that's really
important. I've now become the ranking member of the Coast Guard and
Maritime. While I've always been interested in the ports, at least in
the California ports, I'm now in a position here to spend even more
time focusing on the ports and the maritime industry. International
commerce, critically important to economic growth, Mr. Hoyer talked
about the export potential that this country has and will even grow
more in the future, but that is also the ports and the airports.
Both of these, airports and the ports, are unable to meet the demands
of modern and advanced transportation. Many of the ports in America
need to be deepened so that the new container ships that are now coming
into play and many of the new oil tankers and the rest can access the
American ports. In doing so, we will be able to maintain the vitality
of international trade, the export market, which we really must, once
again, dominate, and the jobs that go with the ports.
And so it's ports and it's railroads that lead out of the ports and
the trucking industry that goes out of it so that we need a
comprehensive transportation plan. We're going to rewrite the Surface
Transportation Act in this session of Congress, start on it this year,
get it done in, well, hopefully this year or maybe next year--not
maybe. We have to do it next year because we see the expiration of the
current transportation plan.
So there's enormous responsibilities that we have to create the
infrastructure upon which America grows. It's the roads. It's the
ports. It's the airports. It's the electrical system and the
communication systems. All of these are critical, and all of them, in
one way or another, are dependent upon the actions taken by the 435 of
us in the House of Representatives and the 100 Members of the Senate
and, of course, the President.
Bear in mind that the President has presented to the Congress a very
robust infrastructure plan that takes into account all of the elements
that we've discussed here tonight. Very, very little of that has
actually been taken up in any committee hearing, and what we have seen
pass the House thus far is not the kind of robust investment that is
needed for infrastructure but quite the opposite: a disinvestment
through such things as the sequestration and the Ryan budget which will
be back on the floor again in the next day or so. These are not the way
you grow the economy. These are austerity programs that actually reduce
the investments that we need for the foundation of America's economic
growth: education, research, infrastructure investment, modern
manufacturing. These are the keys, and we have to do it.
Mr. Tonko, we've gone through most of our time. If you'd like to take
a wrap, and then I'll take a wrap and we'll call it a night.
Mr. TONKO. Well, you talk about the challenges that we have out
there, and you've listed what I think is a very aggressive agenda but a
doable agenda; and I think to reinforce the doability
[[Page H3093]]
of it, the acceptability of it, perhaps we just need to recall some of
our most golden moments in American history when we were challenged,
when there was a need to respond with boldness, with vision, and with
courage. We did it.
My district is the donor area in a large way to the Erie Canal
system. You talk about ports. It grew a port out of a little town
called New York. It was that port of entry that then allowed for the
shipping of goods up the Hudson into the Mohawk, into the Erie Canal
system, a system that was brought about under tough times. The
proponents of the canal said, Look, we're going to do this; it's a
tough time, but let's invest.
Did that prove successful? You'd better believe it. It sparked the
westward movement and an industrial revolution, gave birth to a
necklace of communities called mill towns. Mill towns became the
powerful epicenters of invention and innovation.
When President Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, led this Nation out of
its worst economic crunch, it was about investing in America, putting
people to work and developing projects that were essential to our
hopeful tomorrow. It put a lot of people to work. It pulled us out of
the doldrums of the Depression and allowed us to rise from the
situation and provide, again, hope for this Nation.
President Eisenhower, understanding that in some tough times we
needed to develop an interstate system for our highway network because,
again, it was transporting and shipping of goods and we needed to
modernize and advance what was best for America, that golden moment of
our history should speak to us.
Certainly, President Kennedy picked up on that Sputnik moment when we
dusted off our backside and said, Never again. He called us together as
a nation, a rather youthful President, saying, We're going to win this
global race on space. We're going to do it, because with passionate
resolve, we're going to say ``yes'' to the investments required so as
to stake that American flag as the first flag onto the surface of the
Moon, winning that race, that global race on space. And we did it
because we invested, we believed, and we resolved with passion and
worked together as a nation.
So, let's take inspiration from those golden moments, an Erie Canal,
an FDR comeback with the workers corps and the building of an
infrastructure, highway infrastructure, and the winning of a global
race on space. Let's let that speak to us as a nation. Let us move
forward with the passion and the resolve and say, Invest in the clean
energy, science and tech, innovation economy. We know we can win this.
But if we sit there complacently and don't allow for the investment in
our workforce, deny the potential of this Nation, that is not
leadership. That is not leadership. We will then be passed by by other
nations.
We have the intellect that can be harnessed here to grow the
sophisticated products, to deal with a position orientation of
manufacturing today, to provide for advanced manufacturing, to come up
with clever batteries as a linchpin to the energy revolution, and the
list goes on and on and on. Leadership from this Chamber can make a
difference, and a sound budget, an honest budget, one that invests in
America is what we require right now.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much. Your passion on
this has been displayed on this floor numerous times as we talked about
making it in America, about jobs and infrastructure. As you were going
through that recitation of American history, I want to go back even
further than the canal period. Let's go back to our very first
President, George Washington.
{time} 2050
He refused to go through the Inaugural in a suit made by England. So
he wanted an American-made suit. He found the cloth from Boston and a
tailor, and wore an American-made suit.
He also, immediately on taking office, our very first President in
the very first days in his office, turned to his Treasury secretary,
Alexander Hamilton, and said: We need to develop the manufacturing in
this country. I want you to develop a plan on manufacturers.
Hamilton went out--I don't know if he had a committee or not--but he
came back with a report. It was probably 30 to 50 pages. Now it would
be 30-50,000 pages. But nonetheless, he came back with a report--I
think he had about 15 different thoughts in it--and they were precisely
on this subject of ``making it in America.''
You will love this. One of the very first things in that document
was: We need to build the infrastructure; canals, roads, and ports. The
very first President said: The role of the Federal Government is to
help build the infrastructure. And here we are centuries later still
debating how we're going to do it. Well, just pay attention to the
Founding Fathers. They told us how to do it.
They also said we ought to spend the American taxpayers' money on
American-made goods. It's in that document dating back to the very
first policies of this Nation. And so when I introduced this bill that
says use the taxpayer money to buy American-made products, it's not
new, folks. I'm simply copying what Alexander Hamilton suggested to
George Washington and the first Congress of the United States.
There are other elements in it that play into this in a similar way.
And certainly we know that Thomas Jefferson was really big on
education. And so the University of Virginia came up. These are the
elements of economic growth.
Here we are--435 of us in the House of Representatives--and the
question for us is are we going to put in place policies that provide
the foundation for economic growth, or are we going to go the opposite
direction and continue on the austerity route which actually disinvests
on those key elements that create economic growth?
For me, I'm an investor, I want to invest in America's future with
infrastructure, education, innovation, research, and manufacturing in
America. Those are the policies that I believe we need to put in place,
Mr. Tonko. You and I have been here many nights and we've talked about
these issues many, many times. And we're not going to stop, are we?
Mr. TONKO. You know, we're not. And I think it's, again, that belief,
that sense that we can accomplish; as you were talking about, those
early, early days from our humble beginnings.
I was reminded of the event this weekend in my district in Saratoga
where we were revisiting the area that hosted General Burgoyne's
surrender to the American troops after the Battle of Saratoga. And this
was the David and Goliath routine. We weren't supposed to win that
battle. It's been dubbed the battle of the millennium. And that it was
more than a national battle. It made a statement around the world that
this mighty force came up against insurmountable odds and won. That's
in our DNA.
We are replete in our history of all sorts of response that came in
powerful measure, that said, ``this is America at her best.'' That's
the moment to seize right here. Not to walk away and sequester us,
weaken us, disinvest in us, defund us.
I told a group of young students this weekend with the Hugh O'Brien
Youth Leadership Conference, hundreds of students: Do not let us as a
political generation undo your political generation. You are worthy of
education dollars, you are in need of access affordability to a college
path, you deserve your climate change to be addressed, your planet
requires our stewardship. What is this walking away from the next
generation? Is that our legacy? Is that what we want our legacy to be?
Or is it us remembered as a generation that faced immense challenge
after a difficult recession and we came to terms and said the academics
applied here show us how to work our way through this critical test and
how to invest in America so that her best days lie ahead?
That's responding with fairness, with respect, and justice to that
next generation of workers who are only asking us to do what
generations before us did: Believe in us, care for us, invest in us, so
only our best will be available for us, our best opportunities.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, I don't think I could say it better. And so
what I think I will say is, Mr. Speaker, we yield back our time.
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