Louise Slaughter

Animals fed these antimicrobial drugs on a daily basis are a serious public health risk.

Fighting antimicrobial resistance is a key component of this kind of populationwide prevention strategy.

The cost of these infections and these ineffective treatments to our already strained health care system is astronomical.

Every year 2 million Americans acquire bacterial infections during their hospital stays; 70 percent of the infections will be resistant to drugs commonly used to treat them.

We are talking about billions of dollars that we could save in our health care system.

The FDA needs clear statutory direction to take aggressive action against this resistance.

I can't stress enough the urgency of absolutely making sure our current stock of antibiotics does not become obsolete.

I urge this panel to lend its support to this bipartisan effort so we can expose information that will inform future steps taken by Congress to improve pilot training practices and ensure passenger safety and confidence.

Thousands of lives are at stake daily, and these pilots must be compensated properly to ensure that we attract the people who can fly the planes adequately.

Passengers deserve only the best-trained pilots, and I commend Secretary LaHood and Administrator Babbitt for recently ordering the FAA inspectors to ensure that regional carrier training programs are complying with the Federal regulations.

Thanks, to Congressional Arts Caucus Co-Chair Louise Slaughter and several others, the arts workforce has been thrown a much needed lifeline.

Congress can make--and indeed already has made--a big difference in these musicians' lives.

Arts education is at the core of creating those audiences and helping to create the actual artists themselves.

This is big. This is important. This is good news for the arts.

Louise Slaughter, the great leader of our Congressional Arts Caucus, has been very articulate on talking about both the problems that the arts face and the opportunities here.

Clearly, now more than ever, we need to continue robust support for our Nation's creative industries and workforce.

Today's hearing kicks off a series our committee will hold this Spring to examine how the arts and music can help us rebuild towns and cities and spur economic growth and also how they can help improve student learning.

President Obama has made it clear that arts and music have a critical role to play in improving our workforce, our schools, and our quality of life.

As the nation continues to shift from an industrial manufacturing economy to one based on ideas and information, cities and states increasingly recognize that the arts and culture are important economic assets.

I am also pleased to support an increase in funding for veterans by $25 billion over the next 5 years.

I urge the committee to fully fund the Manufacturing Extension Partnership which has helped create or retain over 439 jobs in my district alone in the last 4 years.

I urge the committee to support an additional $25 billion for the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Incentive Program.

Robust funding for advanced battery manufacturing in the United States would help jump-start a new multi-billion dollar industry.

The University of Akron in my district is a world leader in polymer research and home to the National Polymer Innovation Center.

I come before the Budget Committee today to express my strong opposition and concern to proposed changes in the 2008 bill which would eliminate direct payments to all farms making over $500,000 in gross sales.