Paul Tonko

Right, and I think it was through neglect on manufacturing. They focused on the service sector, primarily the financial services. They ignored agriculture, they ignored manufacturing, and now we are paying the price. Even though we lost a…

Absolutely. Thank you, Representative Pallone. The importance I think of hosting an event like that which the President joined is that we can showcase that there are great things happening. I for one am not going to submit to this notion…

I am ecstatic about the President's choice of Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE, to be the chair of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. We can probably remove a lot of the struggle that occurs on this House floor by listening to the business…

Well, you know, it's great to represent Schenectady, which is dubbed The City that Lights and Hauls the World. It was the birthplace of an energy revolution over a century ago. And to have the President visit just the other day, on Friday…

I am committed to working with my colleagues to create jobs. But here we are, debating repeal of health care reform instead of focusing on job creation. In fact, health care reform was a good start. Since enactment in March of 2010…

There's nothing more powerful than the faces that put a real life meaning into the work that we've done here. Let me talk about a constituent, actually a family of constituents from Albany, New York. Ellena Young is a very young mom and…

This bill is a bad deal for the middle class. If you work hard and play by the rules, you should be rewarded; however, today's bill ignores this. It lines the pockets of the mega-rich at the expense of everyone else. Our top priority right…

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have said over and over again that cutting taxes for millionaires and billionaires will create jobs. It simply has not. Albert Einstein once described insanity as doing the same thing over and…

Absolutely. And I loved the converting of tax policy into a job focus. My question rhetorically to the opposition party has been the marketing of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts was all around jobs. These are the job-creating tax cuts. My…

We borrowed, as was indicated by the gentlewoman from New Hampshire, in the decade that preceded this administration from China to pay not only for tax cuts but for two wars and for Medicare part D, for a doughnut hole that now is driving…

Yes. Thank you, Representative Garamendi, for bringing us together this evening for an hour's worth of discussion. Obviously, I think we need to stay extremely well focused, laser sharp in our focus on what's affordable and what return we…

Thank you, Representative Garamendi, and thank you for bringing us together on a very important topic. "Make it in America" manufacturing matters, absolutely. I think what has been promoted also as a subtheme here has been the investment…

Let me just state this, that the landmark Small Business Act, which is intended to create jobs--we're anticipating 500,000 jobs--allows for investment in exporting, which I believe is critically important; it allows for investment in our…

That's absolutely the progress we wanted to witness, and was it fast enough? It's never fast enough for us after we've lost 8.2 million jobs, after the American households in the last 18 months of the Bush presidency lost $18.5 trillion…

Exactly. And it creates that sort of stewardship over the budget that doesn't find us in situations where we paid for two wars, we initiated a part D Medicare doughnut hole which impacted our senior population with their pharmaceutical…

And I would suggest to you also that we need to accompany that sort of analytical thinking and that sort of dividend associated with the spending that would be done on a tax cut so that we maximize the benefit for the economy. But we also…

Absolutely--and oftentimes a fact missed on many out there. It was the largest such tax cut for middle-income America, a historic statement. You compare that Obama tax cut to the Bush tax cut that borrowed to spend for the tax cut for the…

The strengthening of the middle class, enabling them to have more purchasing power, has got to be the guiding force as we continue to do work in the closing stages of the 111th Congress and move into the next session of Congress. It is…

It is exactly the same thing. The majority in this House supported the Recovery Act.

While Democrats work to help our country return from the Republican recession, our top priority is to create jobs and restore responsible fiscal policies that support the middle class. The key part of our pro-growth agenda is helping small…

Thank you, Representative Garamendi, for bringing us together. You are right, I do represent the area that houses the Erie Canal bed that was the main route to the westward movement, and it's a necklace of communities called mill towns…

Absolutely. Well, let me tell you, Representative Garamendi, what this means is that with that recovery money, with the stimulus money that the Democrats support and the Republicans said ``no'' to, we were able to, for once now, finally…

I think not only is that true, but also I believe during the Bush Presidency there was a strong focus on a portion of our economy, on our jobs, and somewhat a weak commitment to other sectors. As we all know, when you break down the jobs…

I stand here this evening in strong support of H.R. 847. I want to commend my colleagues, Representatives Maloney, Nadler, Crowley and the entire delegation from New York in a bipartisan way for working on this bill. It is so essential…

When you talk about the $11.5 trillion deficit, when the Bush administration ended is when I arrived in Washington as a freshman, several months ago now, in my first term. I distinctly recall that economists of all stripes, from far right…