[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3974-3979]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to talk 
about what's on the minds of the constituents in my district, and 
that's jobs. They're worried about the economy, they're worried about 
jobs, and they want to find an opportunity to get a job.
  Unfortunately, it's actually 11 weeks since the Republicans took 
control of this House, and there's not been one job bill. The big bill 
that passed here 4 weeks ago was the continuing resolution for the 
year, and that piece of legislation actually disposed of 700,000 jobs. 
It was all couched in the terms of how we're going to solve the 
deficit, but the reality is you're not going to solve the deficit by 
making small cuts through multiple programs, and that's what it did. 
What it actually would have accomplished is to destroy 700,000 jobs 
here in America.
  What we need to do is to take the long view. We need to look at the 
overarching problem, and we do have a deficit problem. Most of it, 
frankly, was created during the George W. Bush administration. If you 
look back to the year 2000 when the Clinton administration ended, there 
would have been, if the same policies had continued, a $5 billion 
surplus. We would have wiped out the American debt. That didn't happen. 
Policies changed, two wars, tax reductions, and an incredible deficit, 
and the collapse of the American and the worldwide economy.
  So where are we today? We're left with a problem. We're going to talk 
about that today.
  I've asked my friend from New York (Mr. Tonko) to join us and my good 
friend from Illinois, Jan Schakowsky, to join us.
  Mr. Tonko, if you would start us.
  Mr. TONKO. Sure. Absolutely my pleasure, and, Mr. Garamendi, thank 
you for bringing us together during this coming hour so that we can 
address what is the most critical issue: the jobs and the economy.
  The American public speaks out overwhelmingly to make certain that 
that is our highest priority here in Congress. In every public opinion 
survey that you have seen in the last several months, it's about jobs. 
It's the pledge that we have made since I've been here as a Member of 
this House. As Democrats in this House, we have been pushing the agenda 
for jobs. We believe there's no other higher priority.
  I think of the 8.2 million jobs lost during the Bush recession when 
there was a willful neglect of the manufacturing sector, of the ag 
sector of our economy. It was dedicated and directed towards service 
sector, primarily the financial industry and the investment community. 
We know what happened. There was not stewardship over that arena. There 
was not the sort of watchdog application, and we allowed for many 
people to be hurt by that painful recession, where their lifetimes' 
worth of savings were invested through portfolios of investment on Wall 
Street, and because of the greed, they got brought down, and people 
were left hurting, losing their homes, losing their lifetime savings, 
and 8.2 million jobs lost to this American economy.
  So we have got to turn that around. We have begun carefully with the 
programs and the policies, working with this President, starting in the 
111th Congress over a year or two ago where we made certain that jobs, 
jobs, jobs were the highest priority. We put together a package a 
policies that would make certain that we would grow jobs in America.
  We began with some very strong efforts to invest, through the 
Recovery Act, in those industries that need that sort of launching, 
that we could somehow take this clean energy agenda, their industry, 
the innovation economy, and make it work for America, and that affects 
people in the elements of trades on over to the Ph.D.s. And we saw what 
happened. In the last year, for instance, 1.5 million jobs added from 
the private sector column. Now our friends want to put on this cut in 
domestic programs that every think tank has forewarned would cost us 
jobs. In fact, many are suggesting 700,000 jobs would be lost if these 
cuts to the domestic investments that are so important to America's 
working families would be allowed to have happen.
  So we need to go forward with a very thoughtful plan that enables us 
to not only grow jobs, in fact, jobs not yet on the radar screen, but 
to grow jobs in a way that can allow us to compete, and

[[Page 3975]]

compete effectively, on the global scene, in that global marketplace; 
because I agree with the President on this notion: Whoever wins this 
race on clean energy, the global race on innovation, will become the 
exporter of energy intellect, energy ideas, innovation.
  We saw it happen decades ago with the global race on space, and 
America embraced that with passionate resolve and said we are going to 
win this race; we're going to invest. President Kennedy set a tone that 
was a winning tone. It engaged everybody. We worked as a team in this 
country. People came together in a bipartisan, spirited way, and all we 
talked about was investing in science and technology and engineering. 
And guess what? We won that race because we embraced it with passionate 
resolve. And it wasn't just the poetry of landing a person, an 
American, on the Moon first where he was quoted as saying, One small 
step for man; one giant step for mankind, but it was the unleashing of 
several elements of technology that pervaded every sector of 
development out there from health care to education to communications 
to energy generation.

                              {time}  1600

  And it was using new technology, making the difference by embracing 
that technological advancement.
  We not only won the global race on space but created all sorts of 
technology, science and tech investment in our American industries and 
our American fabric. That made a difference. And that's the sort of 
synergy, that's the sort of focus, laser-sharp focus we need today; not 
the cutting and dismantling of R&D investments that enable us, empower 
us, give us the muscle to win the global race on innovation, but also 
to have the sort of human infrastructure developed through investments 
in education. That's where we need to be.
  This conference, the Democratic conference in this House has made it 
its mantra: Make it in America. Bring it back. Rebuild America. Let's 
show the hope to the American public. Let's make a difference. Let's 
win this global race on innovation. We can do it. But we won't do it if 
we disinvest in America, which is happening on this floor. The attempts 
to disinvest in America will set us back.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Mr. Tonko.
  I would also point out that in the continuing resolution, H.R. 1, 
that passed this House by the Republican Party, the innovation was 
essentially destroyed. There had been a layoff of over 6,000 
researchers at our national laboratories; money for the ARPA-E, which 
is the advanced energy research program which was decimated, literally 
stopped, so that the energy issues you talked about would not be funded 
going forward. And in the National Institutes of Health, cancer 
research, heart ailment research, those were also cut. So one thing 
after another, all that new technology, including technology for the 
health of Americans, was defunded.
  Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, I would add to that public 
safety. We even dismantle the efforts to forecast tsunamis. We just saw 
the devastation in Japan with this horrific earthquake. We take away 
the opportunity for science to work for us, to address our own public 
safety. How long can we be here?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. If the gentleman will yield, not more than 23 minutes 
ago, the House, under the Republican leadership, voted to remove almost 
$120 million of funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration. That's where the information comes from about the 
tsunami. The tsunami warning came from that agency. And here we find 
the Republicans pulling money out of that not more than 25 minutes ago 
here on the floor.
  I would like now to turn to our colleague from the great State of 
Illinois. Jan, if you would share with us. I know that you have got a 
project underway, a bill that you are about to introduce. Perhaps you 
can share it with us.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I do. First of all, let me thank you for focusing not 
just tonight but so many days on the floor of this House on jobs, 
especially since the new majority has done nothing, absolutely nothing 
to create jobs for the American people since they have been in charge 
and, instead, want to gut Federal programs in a way that economists say 
will eliminate jobs and slow our economic recovery and put hardship on 
the American people.
  Yes. I do want to say, first of all, that Democrats have a plan, and 
we know what it takes to make investments by building strong 
infrastructure and what our plan is called. And I want to thank our 
leader, the whip, Steny Hoyer, for summarizing it in the best way 
possible, and that is: Make it in America. I know he will talk about 
that, that we mean both making stuff here, which we ought to do, and I 
think Americans everywhere--and certainly in my district, they start 
nodding as soon as I say, ``We need to make it in America,'' and 
everybody, regardless of party, regardless of income starts to nod.
  But this week, I am reintroducing a bill that I have had called the 
Patriot Corporations of America Act, which provides incentives to and 
rewards companies that are good corporate citizens of the United States 
of America. Right now, sadly, the United States gives billions of 
dollars in subsidies and tax breaks and government contracts to 
companies that outsource jobs, that exploit workers, that avoid their 
fair share of taxes. And this only encourages those companies to invest 
abroad instead of making it in America and using the best workers in 
the world--American workers.
  The Patriot Corporations of America Act would help us reverse course 
by providing incentives to companies that create a real partnership 
with American workers and invest in our economic future. It would be 
paid for, this legislation, by closing corporate offshoring loopholes 
and reining in some of the new tax breaks for millionaires.
  This bill would reward companies that voluntarily meet the following 
patriotic standards by moving them to the front of the line for 
government contracts and giving them a 5 percent reduction in their 
taxable income. To qualify as a patriot corporation, businesses must 
produce at least 90 percent of their goods and services in the United 
States; spend at least 50 percent of their research and development 
budgets in the United States; limit top executive pay to no greater 
than 100 times that of their lowest compensated full-time workers--
pretty generous, actually; contribute at least 5 percent of payroll to 
a portable pension fund; pay at least 70 percent of the cost of health 
insurance premiums; maintain neutrality and employee organizing drives; 
and comply with Federal regulations regarding the environment, 
workplace safety, consumer protections, and labor relations, which 
they're supposed to do anyway.
  So I think it's time for the United States to reward companies that 
show a dedication to the American workforce, and that's why I call it 
the Patriot Corporations of America Act. I certainly would invite all 
my friends on both sides of the aisle to support this kind of 
legislation that helps to make it in America.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. That kind of legislation is the type of policy we 
ought to be pushing forward here, one that rewards American 
corporations that are actually making things in America and employing 
Americans.
  I'm going to turn to our minority whip in just a moment, but this 
Make It in America slogan was created by Steny Hoyer, and there are 
about six, seven different policies, some of which we have already 
covered. We haven't talked about trade yet, but tax policy, which is 
what you just brought forward, a tax incentive for corporations to be 
good citizens here. Mr. Tonko talked about energy policy. Labor, 
certainly that's part of what you talked about; education, which we 
haven't yet covered; intellectual property, which is, in fact, that 
research agenda; and the infrastructure. These are all elements of the 
Make It in America agenda.
  Mr. Hoyer, this is your concept of using this term ``Make It in 
America.'' Would you share with us where we are

[[Page 3976]]

today with this whole agenda and how things are moving along.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman from California.
  Mr. Garamendi has been as faithful in bringing before the American 
people the concept of the Make It in America agenda. And, of course, 
the gentlelady from Illinois pointed out that it means two things: that 
we're going to succeed. We're going to grab opportunity. We're going to 
expand our quality of life. We're going to make it, in other words. And 
we're going to make it in America. We're going to manufacture it in 
America. We're going to grow it in America, and we're going to sell it 
here and across the world.
  We can compete with anybody in the world, frankly, given the proper 
environment. And I have talked to numerous members of the corporate 
community. I have talked to labor. I have talked to the National 
Association of Manufacturers. And we are going to pursue this Make It 
in America agenda because Americans know that we need to be focused on 
jobs, on expanding opportunity and providing for good wages and good 
benefits for working American families so they can provide a good life 
for themselves and their families; and, as a consequence of doing so, 
will create communities and States and a Nation which will be and will 
continue to be the envy of the world.
  Democrats believe, Mr. Garamendi, that when more products are made in 
America, more families will be able to make it in America, as I said. 
That's why we've worked hard since the last Congress to advance the 
Make It in America agenda--nobody has worked harder than you have to do 
that--a legislative agenda that helps create conditions for American 
companies to stay here, innovate here, and create jobs here. When more 
products are made in America, more families have access to well-paying 
middle class jobs. And when more products are made in America, we are 
able to turn expertise in manufacturing them into the new products and 
new industries of the future.

                              {time}  1610

  ``Make It in America'' is about creating middle class opportunity and 
about keeping America's innovators here and keeping our innovative 
edge.
  Mr. Grove, who founded Intel, made the observation that the problem 
that we have in America today is we are still the inventive center of 
the world. We're still the innovative and development center of the 
world. But too often what we're doing is taking the products that we've 
invented, innovated, and developed and taking them to scale overseas. 
His proposition is--and I think Andy Grove is absolutely right on 
this--if you continue to do that, the inventors, innovators, and 
developers will move to where the product is being taken to scale.
  The president of Dow recently wrote a book--by the way, in January, 
the publishers named it--and the name of that book is ``Make It in 
America.'' As a matter of fact, I think I am going to get copies of 
that book for all our Members.
  So far, President Obama has signed seven Make It in America pieces of 
legislation that we passed last year. They speed up the patent process 
for inventors; help small businesses with loans and tax cuts that 
enable them to innovate, grow, and create new jobs; and strengthen 
science, technology, engineering, and math education, much of which is 
on your poster there.
  One thing I would add that I'd say to my friend is, and I'm not sure 
where you want to add it, but regulatory policy is going to be 
critical. And what I have said is that in the last administration the 
financial community got way out of hand. Why? We took the referee off 
the field.
  We need to put the referee back on the field but make sure the 
referee doesn't get in the way of the game being played within the 
rules. And that's of a critical nature.
  Some people want to take the referee off the field and forget about 
the environment. Some people want to take the referee off the field and 
forget about fair wages. Some people want to take the referee off the 
field and not worry about a safe working place.
  All of those things are important, but it's important to make sure 
that, within the rules--and we can do so profitably in America. I've 
talked to Alan Mulally at Ford. Whirlpool has brought enterprises back 
from offshore. GE has brought enterprises up. They still have a lot 
offshore, but they brought some back.
  And the proof of the pudding is foreign manufacturers have come to 
the United States and are exporting their cars to other places. They're 
selling them here but exporting, which shows, clearly, that you can 
make it in America and do so profitably.
  In the weeks to come we will be proposing more ``Make It in America'' 
legislation. And we hope that it will win support of both sides of the 
aisle. This is not a partisan agenda. There's not a Republican who 
doesn't want to make sure Americans make it in America.
  But we haven't, frankly, in the first 3 months of this session, and 
we're about to leave. But there's nothing on the schedule that's 
focused on jobs. So we will have taken up January, February, and March, 
and not focused on jobs.
  As a matter of fact, as the gentleman knows, the only thing we have 
done is pass H.R. 1, which, Mr. Zandi, John McCain's advisor, says will 
cost us 700,000 jobs.
  So I'm hopeful that we can pursue, in a bipartisan basis, the Make It 
in America agenda, expand our manufacturing capability, grow those jobs 
that pay well, and provide good benefits, and make America the kind of 
country it has been, is now, and we want to be in the future.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for focusing 
America's attention on this critical agenda.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you very much, Mr. Hoyer. And we thank you for 
your leadership on this entire agenda because this is about middle 
class America. This is the middle class America that was rapidly 
disappearing over the last 15 to 20 years as we exported American 
manufacturing jobs. Your agenda, the Make It in America agenda, brings 
those jobs back to America.
  I will note that there are a couple of pieces of legislation that you 
could add to that list.
  Mr. HOYER. These are, of course, the ones that we have already passed 
and that have been signed into law. But you have a very important piece 
of legislation.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I'll come to the future, but I'd like to add one to 
the past, and that is, in the legislation that we passed last December, 
without any Republican votes, there was a provision that gave to every 
business in America the opportunity to immediately write off, against 
their taxes, 100 percent of a capital investment. So if they wanted to 
expand their business they could write off immediately, not depreciate 
over several years, but immediately. Not a Republican vote for that.
  There was also in that piece of legislation, actually in a previous 
piece of legislation, a tax provision, one of the things we talk about 
here on our agenda, that would eliminate a tax break that American 
corporations had when they offshored a job. When they sent a job 
offshore, American corporations received about $12 billion in tax 
breaks every year. Well, what's that about? We eliminated it. Again, we 
had no help from our colleagues on the Republican side.
  So our agenda started way before this year. We're going to carry it 
forward with your leadership. And we've got an agenda here of seven 
different elements in that, tax policy being one of them.
  Thank you so much for your leadership on all of this.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. I thank you for yielding again, but 
simply to say I thank you for your leadership. You have been one of the 
most faithful, effective, and articulate spokespersons for an agenda 
for middle and working class Americans.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. You're kind, but Mr. Tonko's been there this entire 
time. Let me turn back to Mr. Tonko.
  Thank you very much, Mr. Hoyer.
  Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Steny. Thank you, Representative Garamendi.

[[Page 3977]]

  I think the tragedy that results from the lack of vision by the new 
Republican majority in this House, the sadness that results, is that 
not only is it near 3 months of a new regime with zero numbers of bills 
as a number of bills that's been approved that would create jobs--that 
would be bad enough. But it's dismantling success that's been achieved 
in the last couple of years. That translates into jobs, the health care 
industry, the innovation economy, dismantling that, disinvesting in 
America. That's even worse. Instead of standing still, which is tragic, 
we're going backward, backward, that takes us into what could be the 
recession of the recent past that was 8.2 million jobs lost.
  We need to invest. Now, it's a no brainer to assume that if you put 
R&D into play--and they've dismantled R&D, education, higher education, 
health care--all of this impacts jobs and the potential to compete with 
the muscle that America needs.
  The American public is asking for hope to be built into the fabric of 
this Nation. We have advanced that message of hope. We're talking about 
making it in America. We're talking about investing in R&D. Why? 
Because where R&D takes place is probably where manufacturing follows.
  It makes sense to incorporate the R&D elements with the manufacturing 
sector. That's a given in the current economy, in the present day 
industry. So we need to invest. We need to invest in R&D, rather than 
cutting drastically the programs that will lead to energy research.
  I served at NYSERDA as president and CEO, the New York State Energy 
Research and Development Authority. I saw what happened with job 
creation when you create new shelf opportunities, new product lines. 
And this R&D effort is about taking ideas and moving them along. You 
prototype, you test, you evaluate, and then you manufacture. And we 
need to carry those steps through. We need to fund them, we need to 
invest. It's going to take that kind of effort to grow the economy and 
grow it in a way that allows us to have reasonable expectation to win 
the global race on energy, clean energy, and innovation.
  You don't dismantle education by making drastic cuts. You don't undo 
the opportunity to dream of a higher education and advance your skill 
set and allow your dreams to be met, to be tethered.

                              {time}  1620

  Instead, you invest. We have not done that. I represent a necklace of 
communities called mill towns that were established with the Erie 
Canal, Barge Canal District. We created a port out of a little town 
called New York City, and we developed the westward movement through 
the mill towns that were established in the district that I represent.
  That pioneer spirit where these mill towns became the epicenter of 
invention and innovation still exists. It is still part of the American 
DNA. And America knows that if we invest, if we instill hope into the 
equation, they are there. We know that we can make it happen, but it 
takes the sort of investment and not the denial that we have seen in 
this House where zero jobs are the result of zero bills being passed 
here that would promote an American Make It in America campaign, where 
we would have an American industrial bolstering by this kind of effort.
  America knows that this is not the action that they called for. This 
kind of standing still is not good, because it takes us backwards. It 
takes us backward when we need to build upon the progress that was 
achieved over the last year where 1.5 million sector jobs were added to 
the equation. We can do it. We can do it in significant measure. We can 
do it in cutting-edge fashion where we advance the intellectual 
capacity of this great Nation, where we are continually investing in 
the brain power, and we are not tapping into it.
  Patents are going off shore. Why are we standing here now talking 
about continuing the mindless effort of subsidies, handouts to big oil 
companies to the tune of $100 billion, when that could be denied and we 
could invest, fungibly move those dollars over to investing in R&D for 
new product delivery so we are not dependent on an oil industry, we are 
not dependent on disruption in the Mid East, but rather controlling our 
own energy future, self-sufficiency energy independence.
  Those are the thematics. Those are the dynamics that should guide us. 
I don't see that here. We are walking away from it. We are walking away 
from the sound faith we should have in America's workers.
  Look what is happening in Wisconsin. Workers are revolting. We need 
to respect workers. We need to understand that they are the solution.
  Let's invest in America. Let's invest in Make It America, and let's 
turn this around. America is placing its hope in the leaders here, and 
to have the results be zero jobs because zero bills were introduced and 
passed is unacceptable. And the majority needs to account for the 
700,000 jobs they want to kill simply by the cuts they are making to 
the budget that has been presented.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, your passion and knowledge on this is 
extraordinary and so well placed.
  If we look at what has happened here on the floor in the last 11 
weeks, it has only been about destroying jobs immediately. The 
continuing resolution that was passed by the Republicans 4 weeks ago 
actually would destroy, if it became law--fortunately, it hasn't--would 
destroy 700,000 jobs.
  And it's not just those immediate jobs that are lost. As you so 
correctly point out, the key investments in tomorrow's economy were 
similarly destroyed. The research agenda for the energy economy was 
wiped out. The program called ARPA-E, Advanced Research in Energy 
policy, the program, was wiped out. Those are where the clean energy 
jobs, those are where the conservation, where the new lights, the new 
energy systems that we need to deal with the reality of our dependence 
on foreign oil and the climate change issue, just wiped them out.
  Similarly, in the National Institutes of Health, where you are 
talking about cancer research, research in diabetes, the things that 
hold back the American economy, because people do get sick. And when 
they are sick, they are not able to work. So this whole array of 
research, which is one of the fundamental ingredients of future 
economic growth, was wiped out by the Republican agenda.
  Just today, if I might just add this piece to it, I was looking at 
the details of the continuing resolution which passed this House some 
50 minutes ago. On agricultural research, we know that we have a food 
crisis coming up. There are going to be 7 billion people in this world. 
We have a food crisis that is imminent; and in fact, much of the 
disruption that is going on in the Middle East is in part due to the 
price of food. There are food shortages. Agricultural research to the 
tune of over $220 million to $230 million wiped out. Where are we going 
to get the food for future generations? They like to talk about that.
  One final point before I turn it back to you is all of this 
discussion about the deficit. We have to deal with the deficit. But you 
can't deal with the deficit by cutting off the ability of the American 
economy to grow and to perform in the years ahead. So it is the 
research, it is the Pell Grants for education. All of those things are 
critical for tomorrow's economic growth.
  And you cannot deal with the deficit in 1 year. This is a multiyear 
program. Therefore, we need to be very careful where we are spending 
our money so that we create the jobs for tomorrow and we create the 
opportunity for America to make it, to make things in America once 
again.
  Mr. Tonko?
  Mr. TONKO. I will make this one point. Obviously, it is about 
investments. Not spending, investments. Expecting lucrative dividends, 
lucrative returns. And who is this cutting frenzy an attack on? It is 
an attack on middle class America. It is an attack on children, it is 
an attack on working families, it is an attack on our seniors. And we 
only get here what we are wanting to invest here. I think that we can 
go forward with the soundness of policy and a resourcefulness of 
investments

[[Page 3978]]

made that allow us to carry us, transition us into a new economy 
designed intentionally to grow the potential of this Nation.
  That is what America wants from us, and I think this attack is a 
tremendously cold-hearted attack on America's working families. It is 
going to destroy our middle class. Without a strong middle class, there 
is not a strong America.
  Someone needs to create the products, build the products; someone 
needs to purchase the products. And without a strong middle class, 
without strong purchasing power for that middle class, that story is 
over. So let's move on. Let's march forward with Make It in America.
  It is great to join you, Representative Garamendi, for this Special 
Order.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, if I could just pick up on one of the 
issues you raised, which is the ways in which we spend our money.
  Now, we all pay gasoline tax. Right now, it seems as though we are 
being taxed by the oil companies an extra 50 cents or $1 because the 
price of gasoline is way up there, but actually the Federal tax on 
gasoline is about 18.5 cents and on diesel some 25 cents. That money is 
used to build our infrastructure, our streets, our roads, the 
interstate highway system, as well as trains, buses, and the like.
  The question is, where do we spend that money? Now, previously we 
would spend that money on buses that were made overseas. We would spend 
that money on trains and light rail cars that were made overseas. But 
our agenda here is to bring it home to America. If it is our tax money, 
we want that money to be spent on things that are made in America. Let 
me give you a couple of examples on transportation.
  Buses: Are they made in America? Our tax money, is it being used to 
purchase buses that are made in America? It can be. I have a bill that 
I have introduced that says if it is our tax money, it is going to be 
spent on American-made equipment. It happens to be the exact same 
policy that China is following, and it is a good policy.
  You have talked about solar and you have talked about wind, the 
energy future of tomorrow. People and economists that look at the 
energy issues say that if we go to renewable energy, clean energy 
sources, we can have an enormous new economy in America. But if we fail 
to take up the challenge, that economy will be overseas.
  How can we jump-start the American economy in the new energy sector? 
We can do it by using our tax money to support American-made solar 
systems, whether they are panels like this or the new solar thermal 
programs, the wind systems. It's our tax money that is allowing these 
systems to be built.
  But are those American-made? My legislation would say, yes, they must 
be American made. I will give you one example of where this has worked, 
and this is the President's agenda on high-speed rail. It happens to be 
mine. I introduced a piece of legislation in California in 1989 that 
established the High-Speed Rail Commission. We need to do that. And in 
the legislation, and this was the Recovery Act, the stimulus, it said: 
money for high-speed rail must be spent on American-made equipment. So 
Siemens, Austin, other companies are establishing manufacturing 
facilities in America. We can do it with wise public policy.
  I know that you have talked about this and you have introduced some 
legislation of your own. So if you would share with us your views on 
how this is working.
  Mr. TONKO. Well, I think that it is important for us to make certain 
that we create the renewable industry here in this country.
  You talked about the challenges of competing with China. Let's look 
at the proof in the pudding. Let's take a look at what it looked like 
in 2008.
  Private sector investment in the United States was at some $32 
billion and China was at about $23 billion in terms of private sector 
investment and renewables. Then fast forward to the next year in 2009, 
and it flipped. China was at $35 billion, and we are down to $19 
billion. We need to be certain we can compete, and we can compete 
effectively by investing.
  It is there. The clarion wake-up calls are sounding, and we need to 
heed them. We need to listen to those alarms that are going off, 
telling us that without investing into the future, we are going to lose 
the race.
  So I want to put a hopeful spin on this. I think that our efforts as 
Democrats in this House to make it in America are right on. It is what 
the doctor ordered. We are talking about investing in a clean energy 
innovation economy, we are talking about investing in higher ed, in 
R&D. That is how we win it. We win it by a complete commitment to an 
agenda that is well documented through the years.
  It is no different now. If we want to win this global race on 
innovation, we need to march forward aggressively with the resources 
and with passionate resolve, and we can win it. I believe in my heart 
we can win it. We just need to commit to the American public that is 
counting on us to provide the hope at their doorstep.

                              {time}  1630

  Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much, Mr. Tonko. You are a tremendous 
representative of New York State and America. Your passion for the 
build it in America, Make It in America agenda, is so very obvious. We 
thank you for that.
  I want to wrap this session up by going back to what we dealt with on 
the floor earlier today. Earlier today, we dealt with a continuing 
resolution that would go for 3 weeks, and it has a series of cuts in 
it. Some of those cuts are appropriate. Some of them are very, very 
detrimental.
  For example, about $120 million of reduction in the National Oceanic 
and Atmospheric Administration. That is where we get information on 
tsunamis. That is where we get information on hurricanes. Why we would 
cut that out, I have no idea. It is going to be very, very detrimental 
to America.
  On research, we have talked about that, not only in this bill. 
Agricultural research, so we can move forward once more with a new 
green revolution so that there will be food for the people of this 
world and for ourselves, that was cut out of this budget.
  And if you love to have germs and other problems with your food, 
well, you will love what the Republicans did earlier this afternoon 
when they cut some $24 million out of the animal and plant inspection 
services. Why we want to have contaminated food, I don't know, but 
apparently our Republican colleagues do know. So, anyway, that has been 
done.
  But if you take the whole thing in context, I want to point out here 
that in December, with the continuing resolution in December that was a 
Democratic-sponsored resolution to continue funding the government for 
about 3 months, we cut $41 billion out of the budget; $41 billion out 
of the budget.
  Now, when the Republicans came in, they decided to do a new 
resolution a couple of weeks ago, and that resolution would actually 
eliminate some 700,000 jobs in America. Is it going to lead to a 
solution to the deficit? Not really, because we are talking about the 
discretionary spending, which is a very, very small part of the 
American budget. As such, there is no way you can really solve the 
deficit problem in that way.
  Yes, we need to make reductions. That is why we did $41 billion back 
in December. But those were targeted cuts that continued to allow 
America to invest in those things that create jobs.
  We are now into a new set of continuing resolutions, 2 weeks 2 weeks 
ago, another 3 weeks this week. That is no way to run a government, but 
that is apparently what we have been reduced to.
  Now, I understand the argument that we didn't get an appropriation 
bill last fall. Why wasn't there an appropriation bill last fall? The 
reason is that it was blocked in the Senate by a handful of folks that 
threatened a filibuster. That is why we don't have a resolution. That 
is why we have been thrown into this continuing resolution problem.
  What we need to do is take the long term. In President Obama's 
budget, the long-term deficit is dealt with over a

[[Page 3979]]

period of 5 years, bringing down the deficit to a point where it is an 
acceptable part of the American economy. It allows the economy to grow 
with investments that are made now in infrastructure, education, 
investments made in research and development, so that we can grow the 
economy for tomorrow. That is a wise way to do it. But a feeding frenzy 
of cuts that actually would eliminate 700,000 jobs is not the way you 
grow the American economy.
  We have to be wise. We have to have the long term. And we have had 
the long term before. During the Clinton administration, we actually 
balanced the budget for the last 2\1/2\ years of that administration; 
and had those policies gone forward during the Bush administration, had 
those policies been kept in place, we would have eliminated the 
American debt. It would have been gone.
  But those policies were radically changed by the George W. Bush 
administration; two tax cuts, not paid for, most of those benefits 
going to the high end of the economy, to the very, very wealthy, 
resulting in a significant increase in the deficit; and then an 
increase in the Medicare program for drug benefits, again not paid for, 
increasing the deficit; and two wars, neither of which were paid for, 
the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war, not paid for but, rather, 
borrowed money from China and other places.
  The result of that was an enormous increase in the deficit followed 
by the Great Recession, which was basically caused by greed, Wall 
Street greed and the elimination of regulation. It was as though you 
had an NFL football game and you wiped out the sidelines, you took the 
referees off the field, sent them back to the locker room, and said, 
Okay, play ball, boys. You know what would happen. Chaos. That is what 
we got in the financial sector when regulation was removed, and we 
wound up with the Great Recession.
  We need to put in place sound regulation, good regulation, and we 
need to have the referees on the field. We also need to have a long-
term vision on how to deal with the deficit, and you cannot do it by 
just, in a feeding frenzy, wiping out critical programs that create 
future economic growth. Unfortunately, that is what our Republican 
colleagues have suggested we do.
  We are not there yet. H.R. 1, the resolution that would have lost 
700,000 jobs, was stopped in the Senate. We are now into a process of 
short-term continuing resolutions to keep the government going.
  Be wise as you put forward those resolutions, I would ask my 
colleagues on the Republican side. It is a great challenge. It is a 
challenge that we must and we will meet. We need a balanced, long-term 
vision, bringing the economy along, allowing it to grow and to build in 
the future, whether that be the green tech economy of the future, the 
medical systems, the health care systems. We have great opportunity, 
but those opportunities will not be met if we are not wise and if we 
have the wrong kinds of deficit reduction plans, which, again, we saw 
today on this floor not more than an hour ago.
  I thank my colleagues for their participation.

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