Paul Tonko: “It is great to join with our Democratic colleagues here on the floor to share our thoughts on how we rebuild this…”

“It is great to join with our Democratic colleagues here on the floor to share our thoughts on how we rebuild this Nation's economy. And it's absolutely the truth that what was inherited here was a huge loss in jobs, 8.2 million jobs lost in the Bush recession and $18.5 trillion lost in the last 18 months in American households of the Bush administration. So there was a huge comeback required. What we have here is an opportunity, I believe, to really express the strength of this Nation. The strength of our Nation is the intellect. The intellectual capacity of this Nation, when embraced, can inspire a wonderful, wonderful era of innovation, and we have seen it throughout our history. When we professed that we were going to land a person on the Moon, when we entered the global race in space under the leadership of President Kennedy, we made it happen because people saw the goal. They believed that we were the greatness of America, and that greatness was expressed by a Nation that invested in technology that landed us on the Moon.”