Export-Import Bank

Floor Speech

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Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, this week, one of the largest employers in my district, General Electric, announced it would be cutting hundreds of jobs nationwide due to Congress'--due to the leadership in this House--inability to renew the Export-Import Bank.

This politics over people and Republican dysfunction has plagued this body since the GOP won the majority. It has led to a government shutdown, obsession with blocking the President at every turn, and now a loss of hundreds of jobs in my district, Schenectady, New York.

The blame game is played all too often in Washington and at the desks of cable news pundits.

This, however, is a fact: hundreds of jobs in my district are gone because Republican House leadership decided it was more important to appease the extreme conservative flank of their own party than to renew an agency that creates jobs while cutting the deficit.

As the Albany Times-Union accurately phrased it: ``This is the price tag of a Congress ruled by drown-government-in-the-bathtub ideologues who have no regard for facts: 500 American jobs bound for France, Hungary, and China.''

I invite anyone in this body to visit Schenectady, New York. There, they will find families that work hard and play by the rules and don't expect a handout. In this case, a dysfunctional Congress shut down a program that lost families in my district their jobs. That is morally reprehensible and completely unacceptable.

Let's do our job and not have other people lose their job because of inaction in this House.

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