John Garamendi: “Thank you. I want to thank the gentlelady from Pennsylvania and the gentleman from New York for the opportunity to…”

“Thank you. I want to thank the gentlelady from Pennsylvania and the gentleman from New York for the opportunity to discuss this critical issue of small business and jobs. We know the statistics are very bad. But the discussion you two were having a moment ago used the word ``investment.'' And we talked about the American Reinvestment Act. It's now 13 months old. And it's absolutely critical that we always ponder investment because the investments that we can make at the government level will lead to short-term job growth as well as to long-term job growth and stability. Years ago, we looked in California about how do you grow the California economy. I did a report on it. This was more than 25 years ago. And we noted that the history of California's great economic growth was centered on five things. The first and foremost of them was the enormous investment that was made in education, both in K-12 and community colleges and in the research institutions. It was that investment that gave the foundation. And here we are today with enormous disinvestment, backing away from that critical investment in education.”