Paul Tonko: “Representative Garamendi, it is a pleasure to join with you, speaking for your base in California, joining with our…”

“Representative Garamendi, it is a pleasure to join with you, speaking for your base in California, joining with our colleagues from Colorado and Texas and Connecticut and Ohio and Virginia, myself from New York, across this country, we are speaking for the American public. The great populous of this Nation are asking: Where are the solutions? Where is the responsiveness to a job situation, a jobs deficit, a jobs crisis? The solution here, well, last night we saw it. We saw the drama unfold, not here on the House floor, but behind closed doors. We moved into recess. The Republican leadership of the House said we are going to move to recess. We were fully anticipating a vote last night in short order, but we waited for hours and hours. They didn't have the votes. So what happened? Today they moved for a measure that moved further from the center, took us to the extreme edge in order to get just by a vote to amass sufficient support for a very extreme solution that really kicks the can down the road, as the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Sutton) indicated. It means that we don't have this long-term solution that builds confidence in the economy but, rather, a political response, a political solution that bought enough votes, that puts into play measures that we know will not find support as negotiations need to come to conclusion in just a matter of hours. And so this has been a disingenuous approach to a very serious issue.…”