Paul Tonko: “Sure. Absolutely my pleasure, and, Mr. Garamendi, thank you for bringing us together during this coming hour so that we…”

“Sure. Absolutely my pleasure, and, Mr. Garamendi, thank you for bringing us together during this coming hour so that we can address what is the most critical issue: the jobs and the economy. The American public speaks out overwhelmingly to make certain that that is our highest priority here in Congress. In every public opinion survey that you have seen in the last several months, it's about jobs. It's the pledge that we have made since I've been here as a Member of this House. As Democrats in this House, we have been pushing the agenda for jobs. We believe there's no other higher priority. I think of the 8.2 million jobs lost during the Bush recession when there was a willful neglect of the manufacturing sector, of the ag sector of our economy. It was dedicated and directed towards service sector, primarily the financial industry and the investment community. We know what happened. There was not stewardship over that arena. There was not the sort of watchdog application, and we allowed for many people to be hurt by that painful recession, where their lifetimes' worth of savings were invested through portfolios of investment on Wall Street, and because of the greed, they got brought down, and people were left hurting, losing their homes, losing their lifetime savings, and 8.2 million jobs lost to this American economy. So we have got to turn that around.”