Paul Tonko

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, thank you for bringing us together in a manner that allows us to look closely at the American economy, the American Dream, and the decline of manufacturing, which represents a serious concern for workers across the country and which represents a serious concern for communities as we engage in this effort to grow jobs and retain jobs. It's important to look at the statistics out there. Where was the focus? Where was the emphasis on job creation and job retention? Could we do a better sort of stewardship, if you will, of our resources and our policies? I believe the answer is a resounding, yes, we can do better. As was made mention by Representative Garamendi, it is important for us to acknowledge that the work done here--the challenges, the crises that face us--can also be transformed into opportunities. The opportunity here for this great Nation--for the powerful force that we are in the global economy--is to reignite the American Dream, to reignite that dream with the underpinnings of support that come through three separate dynamics. The first is engaging in a small business comeback, inspiring that comeback because small business, the pulse of American enterprise, is replete with a history of mom-and-pop operations, of ancestors that built their American Dreams into an ideas economy, into a service economy that enabled small business to become that very promising enterprise. The second leg of the stool would be that of entrepreneurs--those movers and shakers, those builders, the dreamers, if you will--in our society who constantly inspire us with job creation that is driven by ideas and by the moving of ideas into a product and enabling us to again create that engine of ingenuity and creativity. Then, finally, there would be a thriving middle class. These are the basic principles: a thriving middle class that is driven to have additional purchasing power simply by policy that is done so that there is tax fairness, tax justice, in our outcome. Reigniting the American Dream is driven by those principles of small business, entrepreneurship and of a thriving middle class. It is a basic, simple approach that we have embraced as Democrats in the House, driven by a set of policies and goals that will enable us to look at all sectors of the economy and to understand that the manufacturing sector was grossly ignored. We focused primarily on service as a sector of the economy--ignored agriculture, ignored manufacturing. When the focus was on the service sector, it was primarily on financial services, which, when they were given free rein--when we turned our backs and said ``do as you like''--we found that that drove America's economy to its knees. Now we look at the results. We look at the history of the last decade or two. The precipitous loss of manufacturing jobs from 1997 to 2009--a 12-year run--produced a loss of 6 million jobs in manufacturing alone, Representative Garamendi. What that meant--indicated, reflected, personified--was the largest such loss in world history. That is unacceptable. So, when we talk about reigniting the American Dream, there is work to be done. There is work to be done, and it's time for us to engage in a set of policies, of resource advocacy and goals that are established to create those ladders of opportunity and to enable people to climb up the economic ladder as we had done from our humble beginnings as a Nation, where rags-to-riches scenarios were commonplace and where immigrants saw this land as the promised land. That's history that ought to speak to us, and we can bring it back through the appropriate advocacy here--a climate that creates manufacturing jobs and makes us competitive in a global economy.

Mr. TONKO. Yes.

Mr. TONKO. Were those regulations the same regulations we wanted to take away from Wall Street?

Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. I think my response to some of those changes that you just shared is that it creates this sea change. It creates the U-turn in the road, if you will, and it gets everyone's attention. People understand that. Now we're operating under a different set of principles--you need to invest in America, invest in her workforce and in the job opportunities that will follow. That's what it basically says. When you look at machine tool operations and activity and when you look at it over the last, again, decade or so, you will find, in both categories, Representative Garamendi--of the consumption and production of machine tools--that we're not in the top three. That ought to be a flag that goes up that draws our attention, hopefully, expressing a dire sense of urgency. When you see Japan and China and Germany not only producing the machine tools but also consuming, it tells you where the activity is, and it is robust. That's all a matter of policy. Those are intentional outcomes that were driven by a very focused agenda in these nations, and America--the United States--needs to get back to that agenda. I applaud the President for setting the tone in his recent State of the Union message. I applaud the leadership in this House, which is coming under the banner of the Democratic leadership, that has engaged in ``Make It In America'' as our mantra. Reigniting our American Dream is within our grasp if we begin to advocate a stand that brings back a robust quality to manufacturing opportunities in this country.

Mr. TONKO. I agree that those are great incentives. If we can provide for employment-linked investments in R&D, in tax credits, that's a feather in the cap; that is a catalyst that draws a great response, a great reaction. Your indications here of procurement, with regard to Buy America, is very important as one of the cornerstones of our agenda. But also, I think we need to focus on the investments in infrastructure and energy and the investments in a different order of infrastructure, the human capital, the human infrastructure, making certain that we move forward with the training and retraining of the American worker, advancing higher education, certainly looking at pre-K through 12, and providing career path opportunities. Now I mention that because the employment-linked investments in R&D-- bringing back R&D here because where research is, manufacturing follows. So I mention that. But I will use the real-life example of Wynn Kintz, and I have mentioned this before on the floor, but it's a recent example that is worth repeating. Wynn Kintz of Kintz Plastics in Schoharie County in the 21st Congressional District in New York State----

Mr. TONKO. Sure. Before my involvement here in the House of Representatives, I served as president and CEO of NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. And it was there that I got to see policy put into action. I had worked in the State assembly. I had represented the 105th Assembly District in the State of New York for nearly 25 years, the last 15 of which I served as Energy chair. So I got to see that energy policy put into action at NYSERDA where there were very meaningful partnerships with the private sector, where they would retrofit machine operations, manufacturing assembly lines with energy-efficiency outcomes. Number one, we're the most gluttonous user of energy, as a commodity. It is so important for us to become more resourceful. That should be a social economic goal that is embraced by the Nation. But beyond that, it saves money when we enable these companies to embrace these new technologies in a way that creates a more competitive outcome for them, especially as we move more and more to a global marketplace that is the competing ground. Also, in so doing, there were opportunities to invest in research. Now, not every story in research is a success story; but the wonderful outcomes, when they are a success story, produce the sort of savings of the environment, savings of our energy supply, and savings of the green, the dollars. Those are quantifiable benefits that ought to be encouraged by policy. And here, what I see is us walking away. We had a hearing the other day on ARPA-E, on the Energy Department's programs that model themselves after DARPA, with the Defense Department, that gave us a lot of strength for our military, that brought about the application of science and technology, high tech.

Mr. TONKO. Exactly. Right. And ARPA-E is the mimicking of that in an advanced research area of energy. Now we're going to sit there and battle over--perhaps denying dollars to concepts like this when we found out at the hearing that it is expertly managed, very tight-fisted, very laser-sharp in its focus, and has outstanding results. We should produce additional resources for a program like that that enables us to stay ahead of the curve, and that ought to be government's mission. If we are going to reignite the American Dream, if we're going to do it through the support of small business, which is the economic engine of our recovery and our comeback scenarios, if we're going to do it by partnering with entrepreneurs, who are the dreamers who develop the ideas for the future that grow into job opportunities, if we're going to do it through a thriving middle class, that takes investment. It takes focus, it takes policy, and it's what we're asking to have done here--reignite the American Dream, create the ladders of opportunity, the ladders that build us to success. It happened in generations past. We saw it driven by groups that came here seeing this Nation as the land of opportunity, a promised land. Why not bring that pioneer spirit back into the front line of our thinking, front and center of our thinking so that what we witnessed in the 21st Congressional District in the humble beginnings of this Nation--my district was the donor area to the Erie Canal that inspired the birth of a necklace of communities called mill towns that became epicenters of invention and innovation, inspired a westward movement--that's what we can achieve here if we stay focused and we believe in reigniting the American Dream.

Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, as you toss out pieces of the puzzle there, it conjures up all sorts of responses that I think we need to provide and share. You talk about the intermittent nature of renewables. The sun not shining at night, the wind ceasing to blow, you name it. The hydro facilities perhaps if you have a dry season, whatever. We need to advance the notion of the battery as the linchpin to move forward aggressively with a sustainable agenda which renewables can provide. And so the advanced battery manufacturing that I see taking hold in the 21st Congressional District in Schenectady with the GE operation.

Mr. TONKO. It seems to be the one that I know the best. But what I see happening there is, again, a great intellect being poured into design and the concepts of advanced batteries. Not only can these batteries move heavy freight, heavy equipment, they can also deal with storage of renewable, intermittent power. Once you do that, now you've solved the reliability issue, which is so important for our operations of energy. But to your point, not only is it sustainable and not only does it create energy independence, it speaks to our policies from a national security perspective. We are purchasing from some of the most troubled spots in the world. If we're not doing that at the moment, we inspire, we cause the world market to do that, and a cartel controls our destiny. Is that smart? We are sending hundreds of billions of dollars into treasuries of unfriendly nations that can then use that to train troops against our own American forces. So it speaks eventually and very directly to our national security issues. And beyond that, when you talk about job creation, when we go energy independent, when we become more resourceful, which we ought to pledge to do simply because no matter how it's generated, no matter what the mix of our supply of energy resources, we need to steward those resources in a very, very deliberate fashion, in a way that is resourceful and not wasteful. So we build alternative technologies, we build into a renewable market, and we do the linchpin activity with the advanced battery design and manufacturing all in the U.S., and then we also provide for the training of the workforce. When we at NYSERDA had invested in our annual conference on workforce development, green collar job development, in one seminar we had the presentation of how they were training plumbers in Germany in a solar hot water agenda where they were able to put together the training that enabled homes in a very aggressive fashion to use solar panels on their house simply for their hot water purposes. What that could do for a State like California or a State like New York, and en masse cumulatively for the Nation, is an incredible savings to our environment, to our job creation, and to energy costs. Absolutely important. Households will do well. Jobs will be created. The environment will be better addressed, and isn't that the goal of a think tank like the House of Representatives? Instead, why did we ignore manufacturing for a decade and a half? Why did we avoid dealing with agriculture? Why did we not get into sound energy policy? I ran for this seat simply driven primarily by the lack of a comprehensive energy plan for this Nation. How can a Nation as great as the United States with all of its small business, all of its manufacturing, its industrial sector, its households demanding a better outcome for energy, how could we not develop a comprehensive energy plan? It's what the President has asked us to do. He has challenged us, he's challenged us with fairness in the Tax Code, he has challenged us in a way that will inspire the reigniting of the American Dream driven by that notion of small business support, entrepreneur nurturing, and a thriving middle class. It's achievable, and what I would say, we have the format out there, we have the plan, we have work to do. Let's move forward.

Mr. TONKO. Just on the grid thing, I would like to make a comment because sometimes it's like we're challenged so that we can walk away from the challenge of the moment, and it's not the best thing for us. In 2003, this Nation witnessed the blackout from Ohio right through southern Canada into the great Northeast, New England, New York and some of the eastern sea coast, all driven by failure in the grid system. Now, never in that year that elapsed was there much discussion about public policy, and that was a Presidential year that befell the Nation. And it just does not get talked up. Now, finally, historic amounts of investment through the Recovery Act were made in the grid system and challenging us to step it up, do what's required to use state-of-the- art opportunities for smart grid, smart thermostats, and smart meters enabling people to have more control, more destiny over their energy usage and over their energy bills, making certain that, again, we pour ourselves into an investment of a unique type, a historic investment that enables us to go forward with the sorts of responses that we need. We need the arteries and veins: the transmission and distribution system to wheel the electrons to the workplace and the home place as it's required. And in New York, again, in our bordering of Canada, if we want to import hydropower from another nation and wheeling now, we've moved well beyond the monopoly setting where you had regional situations. Now you wheel from region to region, State to State and nation to nation. We need upgrades in the system just to transport the electrons that are required. It's not if we're going to do it; it's when we're going to do it. And the chance that we have right now is to move us forward in a way that strengthens this economy, cuts energy costs, provides for more wise use of those energy supplies, enables us to produce the energy ideas if it's alternative technology or energy efficiency or what have you, but this Nation is replete with a history of invention that has come through very thoughtful application of what is needed out there by society. For us to have walked away from those challenges is unacceptable. And that's what the grid is telling us right now. You can lay back and say, hey, you don't need an upgraded train system, you don't need an upgraded grid system, you don't need broadband, you don't need all this technology, and you don't need the investment in R&D. Well, that complacency or the contentment that people might feel with the status quo will get us nowhere. In fact, it will push us farther behind as nations bulk up, invest and stretch their opportunities simply by committing to a progressive agenda. And that's what we call for here, to reignite the American Dream.

Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, would you yield to a point? I believe I saw earlier a chart that you had on manufacturing jobs. Could you just put that one up on the easel over that pattern there and point to the '97 to 2009 curve? And it's a startling mimicking; those two graphs absolutely mimic each other. I think you can draw a correlation there that deals with the loss of manufacturing jobs as it relates to the trade deficit. I think that is something that ought to guide our discussions, guide our policy development and actually address the sort of response we need in terms of job creation and job retention.

Mr. TONKO. Right. Well, what I hear here is that an election outcome is more important than the outcome for the American worker. And when political party benefit trumps the American worker or trumps America's manufacturing base and trumps hope into the future, that's a regrettable outcome. What we need to focus on is the big picture. If there is upset and upheaval because we're coming back from what was a very long and deep and painful recession, if that's upsetting news to a political scene, then we have lost the spirit that is required right now to bring America back and to reignite the American Dream. That reigniting of the American Dream I believe is what people want to see in action. They keep asking Washington to work together in a bipartisan, bicameral, spirited way, work in a way that will engage the policies and advocate for the resources that will build the hope back into the fabric of America's families, her individuals. And it's within our grasp. These ladders of success, these rungs of opportunity, they are a very achievable goal. We saw what happened when you ignore manufacturing. We saw what happened when you avoid sound agriculture policy. We saw what happened when you didn't get aggressive about an innovative agenda for energy generation, energy alternatives, energy efficiency. These are the things that people are asking us to do as leaders. They say, We asked you to lead, not to sit content with the status quo, not to watch others pass us by. Our best days lie ahead of us. I'm filled with optimism about reigniting that American Dream. I saw what happened in my district when there was a commitment. You know, the Erie Canal itself, that came about in response to tough economic times. The leadership then said, Let's do this. Let's wed the waters. Let's build a port on the coast out of New York. Let's wed it to the Great Lakes. Let's inspire progress. And look what happened. That response to troubling economic times drew upon the leadership. It produced the leadership. It gave it a face and it gave it a voice. The message was: We're going to build. We're not going to cut our way to prosperity, cut our way to opportunity, cut hope. We're going to build hope. We're going to build and invest in America, her workers. Our best days lie ahead of us, Representative Garamendi. Thank you for the chance of joining you this evening.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate and honor the centennial of our Nation's Girl Scouts. For 100 years, the Girl Scout experience has enriched the lives of millions of girls and their families through innovative and progressive programming that embraces the rich diversity of communities across our country. A cornerstone of the Girl Scout movement, community service, allows girls to exercise their leadership skills on a variety of levels and at any age. Each year, thousands of service hours are provided to communities. Cleaning parks, organizing food and toy drives, planting trees and clearing forest trails, tutoring young students in migrant camp summer schools, collecting basic essentials and backpacks for children entering foster care, sending school supplies to Third World schools, visiting the elderly, and helping deliver food to homebound citizens are just a few of the important activities that Girl Scouts do every day to make the world, our world, a better place. That is something from which each of us can and should learn. I would like to personally honor the Girl Scouts of northeastern New York, which serves 12,000 girls and their families in a 15-county region. I look forward to dozens of these girls coming to visit Washington, D.C., in early June, where they will join others in song along the National Mall. From their individual efforts to hosting the Women of Distinction Award, thank you to our Girl Scouts and their leaders, and a very happy and healthy centennial celebration.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Garamendi. Thank you for bringing us together for a very thoughtful hour of discussion about the need to invest in America's infrastructure. What I like about the comments made here are that we have the tools within our grasp to make a difference, to invest in the infrastructure, whether it's safety on the highways, whether it's dealing with environmental soundness as an outcome, by promoting public transportation, or by enhancing energy efficiency at our water treatment facilities, which is something I worked on when I was president and CEO in NYSERDA, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. But prime in the focus of this investment in infrastructure is an outcome that speaks to the reigniting of the American Dream. We have work to do. This dream should not be beyond the grasp of Americans, certainly not beyond the grasp of America's middle class. The underpinnings of the support for reigniting the American Dream, embrace small business, which is the pulse of American enterprise that speaks to the moms-and- pops that raised a family based on a business that they developed, and they can feed this plan to rebuild America's infrastructure. It's also driven by the dynamic of entrepreneurs, the doers, the believers, the dreamers. Those pioneers that made things happen in this country are out there ready to respond to a present-day, modern-day, cutting-edge retrofit of infrastructure in this country. It speaks to empowering the middle class. Those three legs of the stool are what reigniting the American Dream is all about. We have work to do. Unfortunately, it's not being done in this Chamber. We need a progressive agenda, embraced aggressively, to bring about an outcome that grows jobs driven by reigniting the American Dream. I represent a district in the upstate reaches of New York that was impacted in 1987 by the collapse of the interstate highway bridge, brought down by the flood waters of April of '87, equal to the flow of Niagara Falls. We lost, I believe, 10 lives in that incident. We saw what economic crippling occurred in that given region. You could not transport your products, the area lost volumes of visitors, and there was an economic consequence to that failed infrastructure caused by Mother Nature. There are samplings of that around this Nation. That incident and the data that are assembled based on similar experiences should motivate us, inspire us to invest in our infrastructure. Water, an essential for industry, for residents, water efficiency, energy efficiency as you're dealing with water treatment facilities, can be upgraded in a way that addresses the bigger picture of energy policy inextricably linked to the economic comeback, linked to the grasping of the American Dream. When you look at a number of our communication and energy retrofits that are required to provide for energy self-sufficiency for enabling cottage industries to be developed in remote places, if you broadband out to those areas, great things can happen. So, Representative Garamendi, my statement is let's reignite the American Dream. We have work to do; and we can do it through small business, entrepreneurs, and a thriving middle class. The thriving middle class is the pulse of the Nation. If the middle class is doing well, America does well. Any democracy around the world is most effective, most strong if it has a thriving middle class. Let's go forward with the agenda. It's possible. We have the intellect. Let's embrace America's intellect as the intellectual capacity, and let's get it done.

Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, thank you again for bringing us together. But when you speak to the history of the Erie Canal, it was devised because of economic tough times. This Nation was struggling at the moment, and we responded by building. We didn't walk away and cut our way through; we built our way to opportunity and prosperity. And so as we look at the present moment, reigniting the American Dream begins with those underpinnings of support, investing in capital infrastructure so that there are the dollars available for research and retrofitting America's business community, its manufacturing base, which was for far too long ignored. It also requires the investment in human infrastructure. It is totally unacceptable to develop jobs in our Nation that will grow as we develop automation with advanced manufacturing, to not invest in the nurturing of skill sets within the American worker, totally unacceptable to not do that. So I tell people now, as we tour with our roundtables on manufacturing, that there are thousands of jobs across this country waiting to be filled because there is an automated process that has been engaged in for manufacturing. And I have, at my community college base, training that is done for automated manufacturing. I have within my technical 4-year college base and grad school base in the region--RPI and Hudson Valley Community College come to mind. But they allow, through incubator programs, to develop automated response to a particular manufacturer that we visited, Kintz Plastics. And Win Kintz reminded us that he has now been able to compete internationally by not necessarily doing it cheaper but smarter, and that's what the tools we require here are all about. It's putting the capital, human, physical infrastructure demands into working order so that we're realistic about providing hope to America's working families, all by reigniting the American Dream. And yes, Representative Garamendi, we have work to do. Let's do it in this Chamber.

Mr. TONKO. We have work to do.

Mr. TONKO. I think there are a great number of things that we need to invest in in order to make it happen; but let me preface that response with a description, if you will, of the 21st Congressional District. As I stated earlier, we are a chain of mill towns given birth to by the Erie Canal. The waterways of the 21st Congressional District can easily be defined as the ink that wrote the history of the Industrial Revolution. They were the gateway to the Westward Movement. What you had there were ideas from people working in factories, oftentimes the immigrant patterns entering this Nation, the very first stages of immigrants. So that American Dream was ignited there in a scenario that was very much deemed rags to riches. People came here with nothing but an idea and the hope to build for their families. They provided the fuel that created the Industrial Revolution, and so America became this promised land. Our best days lie ahead of us. We, as a sophisticated society, based on our humble roots, developed some of the primary products that are now manufactured in other nations; but we need, as a sophisticated society, to step up to the plate and do those product deliveries now that are not yet on the radar screen. We have it within our intellect to be able to do that; but when it comes to the infrastructure, we need capital; we need physical infrastructure; and we need human infrastructure. That's what we're looking to do with our Make It in America agenda, produced by the Democratic Caucus in this House, and we need action on these legislative items in order to make things happen. Let me just close with this statement for now. My district was ravaged by storms this past August. In late August, we were hit with Irene and Lee, and the infrastructure was devastated. People lost homes, homes that were entirely swept into the waters. People are still repairing homes that we hope will be recoverable. The infrastructure needs of taking a navigation channel like the Erie Canal and retrofitting it for flood design purposes so that it can be there as flood control infrastructure is an enormous mission. It's not just the engineers and the teams of construction workers who will put this together. You will need hydrogeologists to determine what the best patterns are. If we're going to simply build bridges at the same height and at the same span as currently exists when all the forecasts are that you're going to have greater amounts of water flowing, based on historic data now that are available, then that is foolish government. We need smart government. People want thoughtful government. There is a way to embrace a recovery for these flood-torn areas and to rebuild their infrastructure by reaching to all elements of manufacturing and intellect that can build an agenda, that builds this Nation--and that is going back to our pioneer roots, to a rags-to-riches scenario that is driven by the initial American Dream. We need to reignite that American Dream. We need to do it with innovation, education, higher education, and research, research into how best to do things so that we are ahead of the curve, not constantly reacting to issues with a Band-Aid approach.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in frustration--frustrated with the lack of compassion for the middle class coming out of this body, frustrated with the lack of ideas and focus on job creation, and frustrated with the continued partisanship and division that have led to some of the lowest levels of confidence and trust for this body in its history. America deserves better than this, Mr. Speaker. One hundred and sixty million middle class individuals deserve to have their payroll tax cut extended through the end of this year. Those who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own deserve to know that they will be able to continue to have a lifeline in the time of need. And seniors deserve to know that they can visit their doctor of choice without worrying whether or not Medicare will cover the visit. America and Americans don't deserve more wasted time. Instead of a vote today on the debt ceiling, one that is partisan, divisive, and ultimately dead on arrival in the other Chamber, we should be focusing on jobs and creating jobs and protecting the middle class. Think of it: 61 percent of Americans always or usually live paycheck-to-paycheck, which has risen from 43 percent in 2007. Mr. Speaker, I'm frustrated with the American people being also frustrated. It's time this body come together, put politics aside, and work on growing jobs.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 1 I was delayed. Had I been present, I would have voted ``present.'' Personal Explanation

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, at the expense of the taxpayer, Members of the House of Representatives were called back to Washington to conclude business on a payroll tax extension. The truth of the matter is we never even voted on the bill. Why, perish the thought! The bill would have probably passed. Who loses? 160 million Americans who won't realize a payroll tax extender; 48 million Americans, seniors who won't have access to their Medicare health provider; 2.2 million unemployed Americans who through no fault of their own lost a job, won't have their unemployment insurance extended. You know, when it came to providing tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, there were no bells and whistles. There were no pipelines attached to the legislation. There were no pay-fors. But when it comes to a tax cut for middle class Americans, all kinds of bells and whistles are attached, all kinds of demands. This is a facade that is seen through clearly. When they had a chance to address this issue, they called it ``a gimmick''; it wasn't worth their attention. So don't let them fool you. This is just a way to keep moving the goal post and not do the right thing. Middle class America, take notice. We regret not taking a vote in this House.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, as we come to the close of yet another calendar year, and as we move well into the Federal fiscal year, much work remains to be done for America's hardworking middle class families, the working families of this country that make our economy work. We need to make certain that we respond with the extension of a payroll tax holiday. This House knows that that is important business. We know that the President presented a plan before Congress that would ask for a surcharge on the most upper income strata in our country to bring about fundamental fairness and to address social and economic justice. We know that the hardworking middle class has taken it on the chin with tax cuts of a decade and a half ago that have really caused hardship with the recession in this country where we lost 8.2 million jobs. We could go forward and do the right thing. We can extend that payroll tax holiday and pay for it in a meaningful way, in a balanced way. We can then go forward with investments that middle class America truly deserves and requires.

Mr. TONKO

Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, thank you again for leading us in what has been a very important discussion about job creation and job retention in our country. And I couldn't agree more than with your sentiments that include this concern about providing a benefit to the middle class in terms of a payroll tax holiday extender, but then also asking them to pay for that benefit. So it is like one hand is offering and the other hand is taking from our working families, middle class Americans. This is not the prescription for success. What has been offered by the President is a payroll holiday extender, a tax holiday extender for both employers and employees. And there are many small businesses that stand to gain. The overwhelming majority of small businesses gain by that extension, and certainly the employees do. But it works best when you bring leverage into the equation that comes from the surcharge that is placed upon the most high income strata in our country. And when you look at the charts from 1979 to the present day, there is no denying what statistics indicate. Facts can't be argued with. There has been this exponential rise in the growth of income for the top 1 percent to about 250 percent of an increase, all while, from 1979, middle-income Americans have seen a flat-lining of their household income, and now it's even dipping. So why mess with this progress that has been realized, this steady climb upward--slow but steady--from an 8.2 million jobs loss hole? We have climbed steadily. Why would you mess with that obvious success that is coming back into the economy? Allow for America's middle class families to move forward, and allow for that benefit to be paid for by someone other than the middle class. Otherwise, it's giving and taking from the same audience. It makes no sense. We stand by progress, we stand by progressive policy, and we stand by our middle class, our working families. Let's get it done for middle class America. Without a strong middle class, there is not a strong America.