Paul Tonko

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Madam Chair, I ask for a recorded vote.

Mr. TONKO. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. TONKO. Madam Chair, first I want to thank my colleagues, Representative Bishop, Representative Hirono, and Representative Welch, for offering this amendment with me. Madam Chair, the Tonko-Bishop-Hirono-Welch amendment is simple and straightforward. It increases funding for two important State energy efficiency programs in the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy accounts at the Department of Energy. The amendment would increase spending for the Weatherization Assistance Program. Weatherization is the largest residential efficiency program in our Nation. Weatherization reduces energy costs for low-income families and the elderly and disabled. It creates jobs, invests in local businesses, and advances technology--state-of-the-art technology. Weatherizing homes under this program saves $437 in annual utility bills for the average homeowner. These energy savings insulate families from rising energy costs by permanently lowering household energy demand for both heating and cooling. Our amendment also restores funding to the State Energy Program, or SEP. SEP is the only cost-shared program administered by the United States Department of Energy that provides resources directly to the States to support their efforts in energy efficiency. This includes 56 State and territory energy offices. And, according to a study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for every dollar in Federal SEP funds we have 1.03 million source Btus, along with the cost savings of $7.22, and a leveraging of $10.71 on that same very dollar. Madam Chair, these programs traditionally have received strong bipartisan support. Saving money by saving energy is good--good for everyone. The bill's deep cuts in weatherization programs from recent years' allocations is so-called ``justified'' in the report by the claim that there are large amounts of unspent funds from previous appropriations, including those from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, ARRA. Well, the majority of these funds have, in fact, been allocated, and I understand they will be completely spent by April 1 of next year, the beginning of the Weatherization Program year for States. So that means there will be little to nothing available by the time that FY13 funds get to these States. The ARRA money and the money from fiscal year 2011 has been obligated in contracts to subgrantees. In addition to the cuts in weatherization in this bill, the other source of Federal funds for this program, 10 percent of LIHEAP funds, is also reduced due to the reductions in funding for that program. We're going in the wrong direction. If someone can make the case that we have fully exploited all of our opportunities in weatherization or can demonstrate that we have done all that we can to make citizens' homes and businesses energy efficient, then winding down the program would perhaps be reasonable. But we are a long way from achieving that goal. Energy we do not have to use is, in fact, the cheapest energy available to us. We need to be doing much more in efficiency, not less. Efficiency should be our fuel of choice. This bill is skewed to reinforce our existing energy use patterns. It continues outsized investments in the established energy industries that have received generous Federal support for nearly a century while renewable energy technologies are shortchanged. We should be lending Federal assistance where it is most needed: to individual citizens and to developing industries that are struggling to bring new energy technologies forward, such as solar, wind, and geothermal. The petroleum industry has the means to support its own research. Madam Chair, we are likely to be reliant on fossil fuels for quite some time, and we should use these fuels wisely. An all-of-the-above strategy must include energy efficiency, and we should support States' efforts to encourage the adoption of new energy technologies and increase energy efficiency. Let's continue our history of bipartisan support for programs that save money, create jobs, and improve our energy security. Weatherization and SEP are such programs worthy of our support. I urge adoption of this amendment. With that, Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Chair, on rollcall no. 288, I was absent for legislative business with constituents. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I had the golden opportunity to travel with our President to the capital region of upstate New York to visit our nanotechnology center. This campus is poised for tremendous growth as we witness an investment in public and private partnership. The President utilized that visit to showcase a very glowing example of the appropriateness of investing in advanced manufacturing. It's a great path toward job creation, job retention. The President underscored the value of investing in precision technology, in R&D, in efficiency, and in workforce development--workforce development, development that comes in many dimensions, training and retraining and apprenticeship programs, and, yes, the path to success via higher education. Speaking to that, our higher education dreams need to be fostered with affordability and availability. The 3.4 percent cap on interest rates for student loans cannot grow to 6.8 percent. We will dumb down the dreams of our young adults who are looking to go onward with their careers through higher education. We need to pass legislation so as to hold that cap at 3.4 percent, and we cannot allow it to grow come July 1 because of inaction by this Congress. I ask us to pass that measure in this House.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall Nos. 199, 200, and 201, I was absent. I had travelled to the 21st Cong. Dist. in New York with the President for his visit. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on No. 199, ``nay'' on No. 200, and ``yes'' on No. 201.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to sound a warning: college could become even more expensive. While it's true that a recent report from the College Savings Plan Network put the value of a 4-year degree at $570,000 more than a high school education would provide over a lifetime of work, paying for loans to go to school is a ticking timebomb. On July 1, federally subsidized student loan interest rates will double for low- and middle-income families from 3.4 percent to, yes, 6.8 percent. About 8 million students nationwide will be affected by this change. For a student that takes out $23,000 in loans over the course of a 4-year degree, this would mean paying back an additional $11,000 over a 20-year payback period. But it doesn't have to be this way. This body can act. It can act before July 1 to stop interest rates from doubling. I stand here today to urge action to stop student loan interest rates from doubling overnight. Our Nation's young people face enough hurdles that range from student debt to finding a job to starting a career. They shouldn't have to worry about this body adding to the list.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative DeLauro, and thank you for leading us in what is a very important hour of discussion as we address some of the critical choices before this House. As my good friend and colleague, Rosa DeLauro, from Connecticut indicated, our budget, our budget outcomes are a sum total of our priorities, what has value in our society. What are those sensitivities that we express? What are those outright requirements, basic foundational requirements of our society? I would suggest to you that one of those basic needs is to enable people to have the soundness of nutrition, to enable us to feed families that have stumbled across difficult times. What we have at risk as we speak here this evening on this House floor is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The SNAP program touches one in seven Americans. That is a staggering statistic, and for every $5 in new SNAP benefits that we offer, they generate as much as $9 in economic activity, almost a two-time economic factor. In my home district in upstate New York, in the Capital Region, some 23,000 households are utilizing SNAP funds. One in four of those SNAP recipients are 60-years-old and older. Then we also have situations where three and four have had at least one member of the family out of work in the past 12 months. We have many children; one in two on SNAP are under 18 years of age. This tells us there's a growing need out there. We have had a tough economy, and people have stumbled across tough times. Why is this so important to discuss right now? Because before the end of this month there will be an effort made through this House--they are asking that the Ag Committee come up with cuts that are brutal. They are asking for the Ag Committee to come up with a sum total of $33.2 billion. Put right onto the chopping block are SNAP funds. So we are affecting the weakest amongst us, the most hungry amongst us, and we're not recognizing that those dollars invested in these families will recirculate into our regional economies. This is a sound program that ought to be continued. There needs to be sensitivity shown, there needs to be prioritization of a very important factor here. That is sound nutrition for our American families. I have seen it, I have witnessed it firsthand in our district. It works, it works well. We need to set this as a high priority, and I thank Representative DeLauro for allowing me a few moments of time to share concerns on behalf of the good people that I represent in the 21st District of upstate New York.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, here we go again. It's deja vu all over again. Simply put, the Ryan-Romney Republican budget ends Medicare. AARP said: ``The proposal lacks balance and jeopardizes the health and economic security of older Americans.'' The budget we will consider this week fails the test of balance, fairness, and shared responsibility. It showers the few Americans that are the very wealthy with an average tax cut of at least $150,000, while preserving giveaways to Big Oil companies and Wall Street CEOs. What's worse is that all these tax breaks would be paid for by ending Medicare and cutting education, basic research, and new sources of energy. Obviously, this budget rejects all of our American values. This is not the first time the other side has tried to end Medicare. They tried it last year, too. The American people rejected the Ryan proposal then and they will reject this latest attack on our middle class now.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Yes. Well, there was concern expressed on that train that the transportation bill advanced in this House falls grossly short of what's needed. And, you know, when you look at the many sectors of the infrastructure community, it's not just our traditional roads and bridges which require assistance. It's mass transit. It's rail. It's also telecommunications and it's energy. And it's water. So all of this infrastructure requires an investment. And how do we make up ground where we have underinvested in this area? Well, the President proposes a $10 billion infrastructure bank bill that will leverage government moneys and private sector moneys that will enable us to provide for the sorts of investments that are required. Now, investing in our transportation infrastructure has great merit. Many of us can cite those weaknesses out there. My district, in Montgomery County, lost 10 people when a bridge collapsed along the New York State Thruway. There are bridges around the country that need immediate attention. There are those situations where many believe we're going into a water economy in the next 10-20 years. If that's so, how are we treating that resource of water? Are we being the most efficient? And energy, if we're going to move into a creative, innovative arena for energy supplies and diversify our mix, we need to retrofit the grid system in order to make it all work, in order to incorporate these ideas. Or we can stay beholden to a fossil-based infrastructure for energy supplies, which means that we'll be beholden to nations that are oftentimes unfriendly to the United States and use those energy consumer dollars, American consumer dollars, to pour into their treasury and develop their troops to fight against the American forces. So it's an issue of national security. So there are many dynamics here that need to be addressed in a full- picture view, not just dealing in some sort of snapshot of denial. That does not produce an infrastructure bill that is worthy of the needs of Americans out there from coast to coast. You know, sometimes, Representative Garamendi, you're looking for that Sputnik moment. That's what inspired our win in the global race on space--U.S. versus USSR. We gave it our all because we had that Sputnik moment. We got knocked on the seat of our pants, stood up, dusted off the backside and said: never again. And we won that global race on space. What is our Sputnik moment today? Is it bridges collapsing with people dying? Is it paying God-awful prices for energy supplies and not creating our new energy supplies? Is it ignoring a water economy that is to come and will be a strength for this Nation and a wisdom to invest in our water resources? All of these moments could be referred to as Sputnik moments, and we need to take those experiences and that recent history and have it influence our thinking and have us go forward with a sound investment in infrastructure. So I see great potential here in this budget. I see great opportunity. And I see investing our way to opportunity and investing our way to an economic recovery, investing our way to the reigniting of the American Dream, which is our principal foundation by the Democratic Caucus in this House. Let's reignite that American Dream. Let's do it through small business and through investment in entrepreneurs and a thriving middle class. Infrastructure is prime amongst those areas of investment.

Mr. TONKO. Sure. Absolutely. I think beyond the innovation and the ideas that translate into jobs, research equaling jobs, there are these benefits of connecting us as a Nation. We are a large Nation geographically, and the interconnecting that can be done through the investment in infrastructure is important. Now, we know beyond the roads and bridges and the rail and the grid system for our energy supplies there's a telecommunications network; and that effort to create a national wireless initiative is very important. It will range from first responders with interoperable communications devices for first responders to a high-speed Internet system so that we're wiring in to remote areas and enabling this country to truly prosper. So, tonight, we have heard such great comments about what we can do and what we must do about cutting where we can, by addressing inefficiency, waste, fraud and outmoded programs, but maintaining the vigilance about investing where we must. If we do not invest, we deny the American Dream. If we invest, we reignite that American Dream. We reignite the dream through the investment in a historic display of what America is at her greatest: when she invests in ideas, she invests in her workers, invests in infrastructure, in small business, entrepreneurs--those dreamers, shakers, movers and builders--and invests in a thriving middle class. It can be done, and it will be done if we put our minds to it. Mr. Garamendi, we have work to do.

Mr. TONKO. It's a valid point. Where was that linear, where was that outreach, that extension into all of America with the good products we developed that would serve this Nation well? So what we're talking about now is bringing back some programs. What was ignored was the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, MEP. MEP is a program I hear about all the time from my manufacturers who are still clinging on, who are working trying to be productive, offering hope to the worker. They're saying, Where is the MEP program? Well, it was brought back last year, and it's reinstated into the budget this year. The request to Congress is to support the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. What does that do? It's an MEP program. Okay. It's alphabet soup. But what does it do? It allows for manufacturers, small and medium-size businesses, small and medium-size manufacturing firms, to develop additional markets. The President has said let's get into exporting; let's build it in America and export to the world. That's a vibrant economy. Also, it enables us to define, to explore new opportunities and to adopt those technologies and retrofit our manufacturing base with that know-how, with that productivity margin growing. That means greater opportunity for us to compete in the global market, to create jobs, and to provide hope again for the worker. So it is good to see that MEP, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, is back in this budget. It's a statement that we care about manufacturing, we care about small and medium-sized businesses, and that we are going to see that as the springboard, the economic springboard to the economic recovery that we so much deserve. It's about priorities. That's what a budget is. It's like, Where are you putting your investment? How are you developing that formula? What is the hope that you anticipate that is translating to America's working families? This is the moment for us to move forward by reigniting the American Dream, doing it through small and medium-sized business, the pulse of the American enterprise, investing in those dreamers, those movers, those builders, those entrepreneurs, and then resulting in a thriving middle class. Again, where there's a thriving middle class, you have a strong democracy. So reignite the American Dream, and, gentlemen, we have work to do.

Mr. TONKO. Absolutely.

Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, thank you for that lead-in. Certainly Representative Altmire talked about the need for us to invest in manufacturing, when you look at that precipitous drop, losing the many millions of manufacturing jobs, perhaps the largest loss of manufacturing jobs in world history. It's up there. It ranks very high. Why? Well, policy, tax policy that encouraged taking jobs offshore and investing in other nations. We were rewarding that behavior. What we're talking about now is turning that around, doing this U- turn, putting the brakes on a process, on an incentive that really was destroying hope for American workers. So now what we see is a new vision of providing incentives for those who will build opportunity in this Nation. Also, I think when we look at some of the focus that existed or didn't exist over the past decade and a half, you look at where we were going as a Nation, and the focus wasn't on agriculture, it was not on manufacturing, but it was on the service sector, and primarily on the financial service sector. Now, we know that scenario. We won't go down that road. Suffice it to say, we turned our back and said, Here's the keys; play as you wish. No watchdog in the equation, and people created vehicles by which to circumvent regulation. So we put at risk the Nation's economy. Every family that invested into their future was put at risk. So we ignored manufacturing.

Mr. TONKO. I did.

Mr. TONKO. I think before we leave this talk of manufacturing growth, both of you gentlemen held up tremendous charts that tell the story. What I think is interesting is, when you overlay those two charts with the deficit--the trade deficit and the loss of manufacturing jobs--they mimic each other. They absolutely trace the same curve. And so as you drop those manufacturing jobs, as the commitment was the tax policy and the investment in manufacturing declined, the trade deficit impact from Representative Altmire's chart--they're mimicking each other. You can see the precipitous drop here is almost at the same rate as the impact of the trade deficit. So we can step back and deal with facts or we can be in denial. We can be bitter about success and come on to the floor and try to hold back success. But instead of a tug of war on this House floor, let's tug together. Let's tug forward to make certain that we're investing where we ought to. Let's cut where we can but invest where we must. One of those investments has got to be in the human infrastructure. We're talking about capital investment, and we're talking about physical infrastructure, but we need to talk about the human infrastructure with this manufacturing comeback. When I see advanced manufacturing embraced in my district, where we as a hub in the 21st Congressional District of New York, in the Capital Region of New York, have seen tremendous growth in clean energy and innovation, those jobs are coming about because of an investment in nanotechnology, semiconductor research so as to transmit more electrons over an exact same-sized cable. From what we do today, we talk about the investment in chips and in growing those chips to a smaller, smaller dimension so that they can have an impact--a partnership with agriculture, communications, energy generation, health care--you name it. Any industry can be impacted by that nanotechnology investment. So there is all this investment, but you're going to need the workers who are now being part of an advanced manufacturing stage in our society, where we're having more and more investment and keen intellect. You need to train those workers. The President has said, Look, we've got a vehicle that is very sound out there. They're called community colleges. In my district, we not only have Hudson Valley Community College, Fulton-Montgomery Community College, Schenectady County Community College, but we also have an ag and tech campus in the SUNY system, the State University of New York system, in Cobleskill. All of these are having cutting-edge involvement in research that spills over to the worker. Cleanroom science, retrofitting homes to solar, making certain that you have a trained workforce for nanotechnology, all of this is happening in our community colleges. And the President said, Let's go forward and invest. There is, I believe, an $8 billion investment in our community colleges to train the worker. So let's not pull back on success. We see what's working. We know what has to happen. We have the formula based on history that ought to speak to us. And let's get it done. The worker can't wait until the next election. The decisionmaking on this floor should be about hope and opportunity, not about the next election, but about the next jobs we can bring into the congressional districts of this great country that, in a cumulative format, will spark a reigniting of the American Dream. My district is the donor area to the Erie Canal; and we saw a necklace of communities emerge from that investment which, by the way, came at a tough time for this Nation. Governor DeWitt Clinton said, Look, here's a solution: We have a tough economy. Let's provide opportunities for shipping our cargo, building. And what happened? A number of immigrant patterns traveled to these shores in hope of that rags-to-riches scenario, and they invested. They were the brains behind the industrial revolution, immigrants who came here and developed-- along with the industrial giants--an agenda for jobs. We can do that again. This is the American pioneer spirit. The DNA within my district is a pioneer spirit where these mill towns became the epicenters of invention and innovation. And the same story can be lived today if we're willing to reignite the American Dream through investments in small business, entrepreneurs, and a thriving middle class.

Mr. TONKO. Sure. Absolutely. Representative Garamendi, thank you for bringing us together for an hour of thoughtful discussion, dialogue that needs to be exchanged here on the House floor so as to promote what I believe is a very progressive agenda. And in my heart, I believe that the President has promoted a budget here that allows us to move forward in a progressive style to be able to talk about sustainable outcomes, to be able to talk about meaningful employment, cutting-edge ideas that will now take us, as a sophisticated society, embracing our intellectual capacity, to move forward with the soundness of job creation in the realm of high tech. Now, we have been talking on the floor, a number of us for several weeks now, months perhaps, about the vision of reigniting the American Dream, reigniting that American Dream through the underpinnings of small business as the pulse of American enterprise and, certainly, entrepreneurs who are those dreamers and movers and shakers and builders that provide the soulfulness of the vision of how we can move ideas forward that translates into jobs and translates into product development. Then finally, a thriving middle class, making certain that in any democracy the measurement of a resounding future comes through the measurement of how well that democracy's middle class is performing. And so we know that, through reforms out there, we can go forward with this budget and address small business, entrepreneur development, and thriving middle class dynamics in a way that will build the sustainable outcome. We cannot, in my opinion, I totally believe that we cannot cut our way to prosperity, cut our way to opportunity, cut our way to an economic recovery. We do it through investment, investment of the soundest order. Now, to your point, I had served, before entering Congress, as president and CEO of NYSERDA, the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority. And it was there that I got to see programs that we've devised and funded through the State legislature, where I served for nearly 25 years, my last 15 of which were as energy chair. It was quite an eye-opener to see the program development that was providing job opportunities of a new variety, of a cutting-edge opportunity. And there, not all the research scenarios were, perhaps, a success story; but without that investment, without government joining forces with academia and the private sector, we do not strike that sort of visionary outcome, and what you saw were tremendous investments made that enabled us to pave the way for investments in the Internet, or GPS, or working through the DARPA vision of how we strengthened our military, and then sharing a lot of that information and that intellectual property with the growth of jobs here in this country. That is the sort of opportunity that is envisioned here by the President in his budget presentation to Congress. And it's that sort of investment that believes in the American worker, believes in a thriving middle class, believes in the strengthening that small business brings to any community, and believes in entrepreneurs, that ``rags to riches'' scenario that has been, you know, very much a part of our American story. The American history is replete with success stories, ``rags to riches'' scenarios where America was seen as the promised land. Well, we have not abandoned manufacturing. We have endorsed this idea of investing in manufacturing, investing in research; and I am really pleased to see that we're moving forward with soundness, with this budget presentation in a way that translates into jobs, no other higher priority, and we do it by reigniting the American Dream. So, Representative Garamendi, seeing those success stories through the lens of NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, where we were able to speak to water efficiencies, where you're saving mountains of electrons, we got to see it in electric vehicles that were being developed, we got to see it in energy retrofits for business. These are the sorts of ideas that a sophisticated society embraces. We don't abandon these goals. We get into it full steam and go forward. And by the way, it's because we are competing with other nations in what is a global race on clean energy and innovation. If we don't take that in, if we don't acknowledge that we're in the midst of that race, we will watch nations pass us by, and we will let down generations of American workers, and that would be unforgivable.

Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, if you will just yield on one point, what I believe is also important with the community college investment is the stated purpose of creating partnerships with the private sector.

Mr. TONKO. So it's not like one person or one institutional network working in a vacuum but, rather, a partnership that is fostered by this budget process, by the thinking here of the administration working with Congress. Let's develop those partnerships with academia, community colleges training people and retraining. Many people are starting second careers. They lost a job through no fault of their own. This was a brutal time on America's manufacturing base. Let's bring that base back, and let's give them the tools they need to be successful so that it grows more and more opportunity so that we can have as sharp a competitive edge as possible as we enter into the global sweepstakes on jobs.

Mr. TONKO. Let me just mention this. Last night, I spoke before the ERC, the research center at RPI, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. They are well regarded for their development of scientists and technology experts and the engineers of the future. Their funding is primarily from the NSF, the National Science Foundation. There is a 5 percent increase in NSF in this budget, and rightfully so. What they're doing in this think tank is stretching the creative genius and the imagination of folks with regard to lighting designs, lighting designs that will be used in ways that are unbelievably creative and constructive. It's about creating the incubators of the future, the entrepreneurs of the future. It's about developing the professors that will train students into the future. It is an infrastructure unbelievably sound, and it is NSF-funded. You know, for people to say, Well, our best days are behind us--what I'm hearing tonight is that there's optimism. There's great optimism. There's a reason to be hopeful. There is a charge for us to be optimistic by investing in opportunity. There are the tools that America's base needs. They need these tools. And how dare we not provide them. Earlier statements on the floor were denouncing workers instead of providing hope, training, and retraining people in areas that will be geared toward their specific strengths. We all have certain skill sets or have that potential for those skill sets. There's a passion that everyone has for certain types of work. Let's not denounce the worker. Let's insert hope in the equation and, again, provide for the infrastructure, human infrastructure required for this manufacturing base.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Madam Speaker, I rise today because I believe this Congress needs to stop playing blame games and start working together to reignite the American Dream by helping our Nation's small businesses and entrepreneurs and empowering a thriving middle class. Small businesses are the pulse of the American enterprise and the creators of jobs and economic growth up and down Main Streets across the United States of America. Entrepreneurs are the dreamers, movers, shakers, and builders that help take ideas and inventions and turn them into the manufacturing jobs of the future. And a thriving middle class, well, that's the underpinning of support to make reigniting the American Dream even possible. A strong middle class leads to a strong America. The best functioning democracies around the world share one thing in common--a thriving middle class. So, Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to enact policies and legislation that achieve these ends: to reignite the American Dream by building up our small businesses, encouraging our entrepreneurs, and empowering our middle class. We can start by extending the payroll tax cut for the remainder of the year without delay and without games. I look forward to continuing to work toward these ends throughout the year.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Oh, I think it's Paul Tonko. But I use that as an example because in order for Kintz Plastics to compete effectively in a global market, they needed to move to an automated portion of their assembly operations. They worked with the local higher ed infrastructure. And we have the partnerships in this country that have existed for a long time. There is this intellectual exchange of creative genius coming from campuses, working with the private sector, public sector. It happens. It happens to a great degree. And while they developed this automated assembly process for his industry, they also needed to train the workers on this new equipment so that it brought with it an employment link. And it did that through one of the local community colleges, did an RPI automation design, and then did a Hudson Valley Community College-driven training process so that you developed the workers you needed. Now, these are the investments that then produce these very tangible results and very lucrative dividends that enable us to prosper. And that's just one small example, but I see it over and over again in the 21st Congressional District. We're a hub of innovation jobs that are coming: green collar, high-tech jobs, clean energy jobs. That's happening because there is a partnership with government, a partnership where government assumes some of the risk, as we do with ARPA-E, a Department of Energy program which has advanced research project moneys. They expedite some of the ideas, innovation concepts, move them along in much quicker stead so that we can develop the jobs associated with that. So when you talk about the toolkit here, it's an investment in employment-linked R&D and tax credits; and it's an investment in procurement procedures that link themselves with Buy America; and then it's the work investing in infrastructure of a routine kind: wiring communities, wiring the businesses, making certain that our roads, bridges, and rail are state of the art; and then the human infrastructure: creating programs that train, retrain, and educate workers of the future. You need that in a cutting-edge fashion where we can maintain world leadership. It takes investment. Other nations have shown us that when they invested, they were able to be the giants in the machine operations, the machine tool operation. So it's possible. It's within our reach, and it's all about reigniting the American Dream.

Mr. TONKO. I'm always willing to help a sore throat get soothed.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. TONKO. Madam Chair, I rise today to offer an amendment to H.R. 3581, the Budget and Accounting Transparency Act. My amendment restores a critical step that was skipped by my Republican colleagues. You see, we never once had a hearing in the Budget Committee devoted specifically to exploring the main proposal contained in this bill--the use of fair value estimates to determine the cost of Federal loans. If I could change that, I would, but my Republican colleagues have pushed this bill to the floor. When so many at home look at Congress and shake their heads at the political gamesmanship that has come to dominate this institution, my amendment simply asks that we take a moment to be objectively smart rather than just politically savvy about a policy decision with major repercussions. If this legislation took effect this year, CBO estimates that we would see the Federal deficit jump by $55 billion. This is a bill that would impact things like housing loans, student loans, small business loans, and even our mortgage guarantee programs for vets. It would create the appearance that these loans and loan guarantees cost more with an accounting method that is relatively new and certainly under debate. For a bill with ``transparency'' in its title, we're talking about using some pretty mirky math. My Republican colleagues will say that we need CBO estimates on loans to reflect the risk involved in Federal lending. That makes sense, which is why we already do it. The approach under current law already reflects the risk that borrowers will default on their loans or guarantees. The real difference here is whether we think estimates of Federal loans should be based on how the government borrows and lends or, alternately, on how the private sector borrows and lends. I understand my colleagues have a great esteem for private sector business practices, and as a former small business owner myself, I share that admiration; but we have to understand that the Federal Government of the most powerful country on Earth isn't a private actor. No private lender is in the same position as the Federal Government with its ability to borrow at Treasury rates and its ability to spread risk across such a broad portfolio. So, understandably, there is significant debate as to whether and how fair value estimates could be applied to government loans. The bottom line is that it would involve a lot of guesswork. At a time when our housing market has been devastated, when our workforce is struggling to attain the knowledge and skill set it needs in a difficult job market, when small businesses are fighting their way out of the worst recession since our Great Depression, and when our vets are facing a higher jobless rate than the rest of the country, why on Earth would we make a change of this magnitude without consulting with the best budget and accounting minds in our country? The impact of this legislation is too big to be treated more like an election year talking point than a major policy change with very real impacts on the people that we are here to represent. That is why I am offering this modest proposal. My amendment simply proposes that we convene a commission of budget and accounting experts to provide recommendations to Congress regarding the best measure to accurately account for the costs of Federal credit programs. Congress will then have the opportunity to vote on the commission's recommendations, and if changes are deemed wise, we can move forward with the smartest course of action and with a policy that brings our Federal loan and loan guarantee estimates into uniformity. After all, as we heard on this very floor, it's the people's money we're dealing with. I urge my colleagues to look before we jump on this one, and I urge support of my amendment. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.