Paul Tonko: “Yesterday I had the golden opportunity to travel with our President to the capital region of upstate New York to visit…”

“Yesterday I had the golden opportunity to travel with our President to the capital region of upstate New York to visit our nanotechnology center. This campus is poised for tremendous growth as we witness an investment in public and private partnership. The President utilized that visit to showcase a very glowing example of the appropriateness of investing in advanced manufacturing. It's a great path toward job creation, job retention. The President underscored the value of investing in precision technology, in R&D, in efficiency, and in workforce development--workforce development, development that comes in many dimensions, training and retraining and apprenticeship programs, and, yes, the path to success via higher education. Speaking to that, our higher education dreams need to be fostered with affordability and availability. The 3.4 percent cap on interest rates for student loans cannot grow to 6.8 percent. We will dumb down the dreams of our young adults who are looking to go onward with their careers through higher education. We need to pass legislation so as to hold that cap at 3.4 percent, and we cannot allow it to grow come July 1 because of inaction by this Congress. I ask us to pass that measure in this House. ____________________”