Joe Baca: “First of all, I would like to thank the gentleman from San Diego (Mr. Bilbray) for his support of this. I know that he…”

“First of all, I would like to thank the gentleman from San Diego (Mr. Bilbray) for his support of this. I know that he has always been supportive of Native Americans, not only now but in the past as well; so I appreciate that. I also appreciate the gentleman from Georgia and his comments. I think he was supporting this legislation somewhere along the line as he was talking about jobs. I also believe that it's important, and I know that President Obama has that as part of his top priority in creating jobs and dealing with the jobs in this country because he knows very well that the unemployment is now roughly around 10 percent, and he wants to make sure that he gets it up. We know that unemployment will affect the census. I share in that sense that the gentleman from Georgia was supporting it because it's very important that we do an accurate count and that we count everyone because that will determine the amount of jobs that we have and the kinds of jobs to be created in our areas. As I stated before, Madam Speaker, I would like to thank Chairman Towns, Ranking Member Issa, and of course I want to thank again Mr. Bilbray for his hard work and support, as well as the staff and others who have worked on this bill. As we all know, an accurate count is vital to the importance of the American tribal communities and every other community.”