José E. Serrano: “I'm in opposition to the gentleman's amendment. And the gentleman continues to stay with the theme that these programs…”

“I'm in opposition to the gentleman's amendment. And the gentleman continues to stay with the theme that these programs can operate without government assistance. Yet, the gentleman, on many occasions, votes, as we all do, for programs where corporate America and other parts of our economic community, of our corporate community, gets help from government in order to put forth their product, in order to put forth their growth. What my colleague, our freshman colleague is doing, and I compliment him on that, on the fact that as a freshman Member of this House, he already has, obviously, a sense of what his community needs. And this earmark, this modest earmark that he has put in this bill is one to take back to his community and continue to help to build the kind of small business education and information centers that we need. And so I not only rise in support of it, but I commend the fact that already, at such a short time tenure in this House, he has that full understanding, willing, incidentally, to stand up and defend an earmark, knowing that some people will criticize him for it. But he knows his community better than we do. And that's my whole point, that there seems to be a prevailing theme that only bureaucrats and Federal agencies, who I support, know how to spend taxpayers' dollars. Well, no, this is a fine example of a new Member of the House who has a full understanding of his district, who is willing to stand up and defend what is a good earmark.”