Department of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and related Agencies Appropriations Act 2005
DEPARTMENTS OF COMMERCE, JUSTICE, AND STATE, THE JUDICIARY, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005 -- (House of Representatives - July 07, 2004)
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 701 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 4754.
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Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
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Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I will not be using that full amount, but I did want to rise once again to commend the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velázquez) and the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Manzullo) for their excellent leadership in bringing this amendment to the floor. I again want to commend the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), chairman of the full committee, for his great leadership in bringing a very important appropriations bill to the floor; and I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) also for moving this section 7(a) provision in full committee. Although he was not successful, his leadership was important to the momentum that we have today. I thank him for his leadership.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to close by saying this one thing: I always say that the only thing more optimistic than starting a new business is getting married. In order to take on the responsibilities of a marriage or a business, a person has to be very entrepreneurial, very optimistic, very confident. There are so many risks involved in starting a small business. At the very least, we should have access to capital so that we can increase the equity, the ownership that the American people have in businesses that do create jobs, that do create capital in our country, which in turn attracts the talent that we need to be internationally competitive.
This is a very important amendment today. It is not to say that the decisions that have to be made to fund it are not difficult; and as I said earlier, I commend the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Wolf) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), ranking member, for the difficult decisions they had to make to bring this Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act to the floor.
But we have to choose in favor of small businesses in our country if we are going to grow the economy. Small businesses are the engine of the economy. We cannot just talk about supporting small business. We have to put our resources there and give them access to the capital they need to succeed to accompany the great optimistic spirit and entrepreneurial spirit that they bring to the endeavor of starting a new business.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, I urge our colleagues to support this bipartisan Manzullo-Velázquez amendment.