Jobs

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko and Mr. Sarbanes, thank you for being here. I'm delighted to be able to join you today talking about infrastructure.

Earlier today, just a couple of hours ago, my office had representatives from the City of Davis, near Sacramento, and another community, Woodland, both of them in Yolo County. They're talking about an infrastructure project. The water systems in those communities have, for 150 years, depended on groundwater, but the groundwater is going bad. They need to develop a new water system--about $300 million, $400 million. They cannot continue with the present system. They need help. But they also, in doing that, are going to be able to employ a vast number of people and put in place the infrastructure those communities need. We're talking about the University of California, Davis campus, with about 27,000 students at that campus, bad water. They need to rebuild their water system.

Right now, across America we're looking at more than 2 million construction workers, men and women that could build that water system for those communities. They're out of work. Two million are out of work.

The President came here last week and said Americans want to go back to work, they want a job, and he put forward to this body--to the Senate, the House--a proposal, the American Jobs Act. The American Jobs Act, putting Americans back to work.

You want to deal with the deficit? Take tax-takers, people that are unemployed, and make them taxpayers. We can do this and simultaneously solve the long-term deficit problem of this Nation by growing the American economy once again with, as you were saying so well, Mr. Sarbanes, infrastructure projects.

You were talking about east coast-west coast, Mr. Tonko. Twenty-seven hundred miles of American roads almost unfit for travel. This is the kind of project that the President wants: $50 million to rebuild the American transportation system so we can travel.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, you and I were right here in the back of this House Chamber earlier today and you were sharing with me the stories. The reality in your district is these are your constituents who have been harmed. And we had our colleague, Peter Welch from Vermont, who was also talking about the extraordinary damage done to the infrastructure in Vermont. As we rebuild those communities as part of this American Jobs Act, people go to work in those communities and are able to once again stand on their own.

Share with us some of the things that you've seen from your own district and the needs for infrastructure replacement in your communities.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. You're absolutely correct. The President's American Jobs Act, which I'm embracing and I believe the Democratic Party has embraced, is one that is focused like a laser on the immediate challenge that America has--and that is: Employ Americans. Put Americans back to work.

Another thing that's in the bill--this is about schools. Forty-four percent of the principals across this Nation and all the schools across the Nation have reported that their school in one way or another is not satisfactory for students: the bathrooms are not working, the playgrounds are falling apart, the roofs are leaking.

We need to make American schools physically strong and pleasant for the students to be in. So this is a major piece of it. This also is improving the science laboratories. And the President has lined out about, I think, $30 billion to rebuild the American schools. It's not just the schools that are going to benefit from that and the children that are in those classrooms and on the playgrounds, but it's the Americans that need jobs, and they'll get those jobs rehabbing and rebuilding the schools.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. They could start tomorrow if Congress acts today to pass the American Jobs Act. Because the resources--that is, the money--would be there tomorrow. The day the President signs this bill, those men and women could go to work rebuilding those schools.

There is one other thing that's in the President's bill that I am really excited about because we've been talking about this forever and a day around here, and that is, Make it in America. There is a buy-America provision in this legislation. So when they go out and buy the paint, redo the heating and air conditioning system, those are going to be American-made paint, American-made air conditioners and heaters. That's the kind of thing we can do. We can use the American taxpayer money to rebuild the American manufacturing industry, just as you said. We can do it. It's billions of dollars of American money in transportation, bridges, roads, buses, and trains used for American-made equipment, making it once again in America. This is exciting. This is really rebuilding the manufacturing base.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, thank you for bringing us together. Yesterday, the President delivered to this Chamber a comprehensive American Jobs Act, employment for perhaps 2, maybe more than 2, million Americans immediately available as soon as this Congress acts. And it is fully paid for. It will not add to the deficit. It is fully paid for through a series of tax increases on the superwealthy, and the oil companies finally having to give up our tax money that they've enjoyed for more than a century as a subsidy.

We can do this. We must do this. We must put America back to work. And in doing so, we will be able to deal with the deficit because Americans have come, once again, taxpayers, and we have created the critical investments in individuals, in education, in infrastructure and in small businesses, all of whom will benefit from the American Jobs Act.

It's our responsibility, it is our opportunity, it is America's opportunity to go back to work.

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