Eleanor Holmes Norton: “Well, my additional thoughts are really stimulated by the comments that both of you have made. You spoke about…”

“Well, my additional thoughts are really stimulated by the comments that both of you have made. You spoke about manufacturing. One of the reasons, one of the first things that occurred that got out of this recession was that manufacturing began to come back in America; and now, of course, corporations are finding good reasons to manufacture in America, and particularly at this time. Mr. Tonko, in essence, you were talking about stimulating the economy, and the best way to do it is to build something. You mentioned the buildings in Washington. If you look at the cornerstone of virtually all the public buildings downtown, the buildings that people come to see, the Federal buildings, they all have a 1930s cornerstone, because that is when we stimulated ourselves out of the Depression. Mr. Garamendi mentioned Amtrak. Well, this is the hub of Amtrak, my own district. I must tell you, when I think about high-speed rail, speaking of Amtrak--and we haven't put the first high-speed rail on line, not the first, which puts us behind not only all of our allies, but even some developing countries. {time} 1815 It makes me almost ashamed to be on this committee, we are so behind. If we really wanted to get the economy going, we would give ourselves a deadline for high-speed rail. We would understand that if you want to move your economy quickly, you do not do something like cut taxes. You build things. You build America.…”