Investing in America

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Illinois for his as usual right-on-the-money words about the President's speech. I anticipate eagerly the speech of my colleague from Rhode Island who graciously yielded to me.

I rise to commend President Obama on the pitch perfect State of the Union he delivered last night. His speech was smart and balanced, forward thinking, and unabashedly upbeat about the future of our country.

Fundamentally, the President spoke about the need to preserve the American dream, to bequeath its promise to the next generation as our parents bequeathed it to us. The American dream is very simple. It means there is a strong likelihood that you will be doing better 10 years from now than you are doing today and an even greater likelihood that your children will be doing better than you did.

Many people in America think that dream is in peril today. Some people even fear that America is in decline, that our greatest period of prosperity is behind us. To these purveyors of gloom and doom, to those who are sour and dour and think America and its government can't do anything right, the President sent a clear message: You could not be more wrong about America. We are and will remain the most economically vibrant, the most culturally vibrant country in the world, with the best system. We are the only country on Earth that tells a young man or woman, 12 or 13 or 14 years old, whether their family has been in this country 12 or 6 generations or whether they are a new immigrant, you can achieve the stars. No other country has that. That is a precious part of our birthright that remains alive and well today, as we see in the successes of so many.

It is true that we live in a much different world today than the generation that preceded us. The rules have changed, and it is tougher to get ahead. Unemployment is unacceptably high, and the competition for jobs is real. The middle class feels squeezed. But, as the President said, this should not discourage us. It should challenge us.

Last night, the President explained how we can rise to that challenge. He outlined how we can outinnovate, outeducate, and outbuild the rest of the world, tapping the creativity and imagination of our populous.

He urged us to invest in clean energy technology and other cutting-edge industries and challenged us to put a million alternative-fuel vehicles on the road by 2015. Thanks to the ingenuity of researchers such as those at the GM fuel cell facility in Honeoye Falls, NY, I believe we can achieve this ambitious goal. I am also hopeful we can take up and pass clean energy legislation in the months ahead.

The President also called on Congress to reform No Child Left Behind in order to restore America's global leadership in education. I am particularly pleased that the President enthusiastically endorsed a permanent extension of the $2,500 college tuition tax credit I authored 2 years ago. I would like it to be even higher, to go to $3,000 this year.

It is no secret that much of our Nation's infrastructure is in disrepair and that too many Americans do not have access to high-speed Internet or high-speed rail. For America to stay ahead of our foreign competitors, we need to improve the ways in which we transport people and information.

Since the days of Henry Clay, with the internal improvements, when our Nation builds infrastructure, economic growth follows, and this has clearly always been a government function. The President clearly understands this fact and spoke to it last night.

The President did not just focus on growing jobs, the economy, and middle-class paychecks last night. He showed an acute awareness of the need to rein in Federal spending to get our Nation's fiscal house in order. I echo his call to consolidate or eliminate unnecessary government programs and to revisit and revise regulations that have long outgrown their usefulness. Of course, we need to find a balance, but I am confident that more can and will be done to make our government more agile and efficient.

The President had the right blend: Yes, cut out the waste, even eliminate wasteful and inefficient and duplicative programs, but do not throw out the baby with the bathwater or, as he said, do not throw the engine off the airplane when the plane is overweight. So the combination of growth, investment in our future, and innovation, with fiscal moderation and reining in waste, is just pitch perfect for the American people.

Lastly, I applaud the President for addressing one of the most critical matters facing the country: our broken immigration system. As you know, I have championed comprehensive immigration reform for some time, and the President seemed to endorse many aspects of the approach. He likes the approach, bipartisan, that Senator Graham and I put together. He has told us that on several occasions. So I look forward to working with him as well as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle as we map a path to comprehensive reform in the 112th Congress.

Some pundits and handicappers said Congress seemed subdued, even restrained last night. Well, if last night's speech did not seem like the usual partisan pep rally, that is because it was not. The President's speech was not meant to appeal to Democrats or Republicans or even Independents. It was meant to appeal to Americans. In that, the President succeeded overwhelmingly. The fact that we sat together side by side, Democrats and Republicans, was a fine fit with the President's appeal to the whole of America, not to one side or the other.

The address last night embodied so many of the values and ideals that unite us as Americans. It displayed the kind of optimism we relish, thrive on, and believe in. It was a great speech, a wonderful moment of comity. I expect this moment will not fade soon, and I hope so too.

I yield the floor for my colleague from Rhode Island.

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