On the recordOctober 25, 2011
Absolutely. Before I came to the House just 3 years ago, I served as president and CEO of NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. {time} 1830 We saw what small business creation was about from an innovation economy perspective, from a clean energy perspective. We can grow our self-sufficiency for energy supply simply by moving toward an innovation model. How does it happen? We know most of the job generation in the last decade, if not the great majority of job creation, was done through small business, through the entrepreneur, through an investment in the ideas economy. If we were going to invest money, should it have been these tax cuts for those high on the perch or should it have been for those start-ups that needed their investments to grow jobs in the local regional economy? That's what it's all about. It's what people have told me in their statements as they've gathered in communities. They've said it's about the pursuit of the American Dream, but from their perspective, it's like the evaporation of the American Dream. It's fizzling away from them. They want to be able to embrace that dream. If they play by the rules and if they work hard, they should expect to achieve success, but we're taking that away from the middle class. We should provide the tools--give them the toolkit for job growth via small business, innovation and an ideas economy. We drove an economy as an infant Nation.…
