Paul Tonko: “Absolutely. I hear in your statement the wisdom of sound planning. We need that for a government to be smart and…”

“Absolutely. I hear in your statement the wisdom of sound planning. We need that for a government to be smart and efficient, which is the call by the general public. We want smart investment from our government. Ask any competitor out there in the global economy. They are competing against industries that are being co-invested in by their native lands. There are co-investments with governments and their private sector, and we're moving in the other direction. So a couple of things come to mind here. I participated this past weekend in Small Business Saturday. And the spirit I detected was a leap of faith, a sound leap of faith, by many small business leaders who said, I want to offer a service, I'm going to put my creative genius to work. I'm going to make my commitment to community a response here that's tangible. I saw a lot of belief in the American public, a belief in the American system; and it offers a warm and fuzzy, cozy personalized relationship. People come in; they're known when they walk into the shop; they see the creative flair that's been introduced into that small business. I also see more technically savvy qualities that are engaged in the district I represent with a lot of start-ups, incubators, again, another leap of good faith but needing an investment, a co-partnering with government, especially in a very tenuous economy where there's still a lot of guesswork. We need to be there to remove some of that risk. That is so critically important.…”