Paul Tonko: “Representative Garamendi, thank you again for bringing us together. But when you speak to the history of the Erie Canal…”

“Representative Garamendi, thank you again for bringing us together. But when you speak to the history of the Erie Canal, it was devised because of economic tough times. This Nation was struggling at the moment, and we responded by building. We didn't walk away and cut our way through; we built our way to opportunity and prosperity. And so as we look at the present moment, reigniting the American Dream begins with those underpinnings of support, investing in capital infrastructure so that there are the dollars available for research and retrofitting America's business community, its manufacturing base, which was for far too long ignored. It also requires the investment in human infrastructure. It is totally unacceptable to develop jobs in our Nation that will grow as we develop automation with advanced manufacturing, to not invest in the nurturing of skill sets within the American worker, totally unacceptable to not do that. So I tell people now, as we tour with our roundtables on manufacturing, that there are thousands of jobs across this country waiting to be filled because there is an automated process that has been engaged in for manufacturing. And I have, at my community college base, training that is done for automated manufacturing. I have within my technical 4-year college base and grad school base in the region--RPI and Hudson Valley Community College come to mind.…”