Washington, D.C. – House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA-23) spoke on the House floor for H.R. 2357, the Accelerating Access to Capital Act, a part of the Innovation Initiative.
Full remarks are below, or watch online here.
“I thank the gentleman for yielding.
“Mr. Chairman, innovation is the key to America’s future. With it, America can continue to be the economic and cultural leader of the world while providing important and good-paying jobs here at home. With it, our government can spend more time and money helping Americans who need it, and less supporting a wasteful, ineffective, and outdated bureaucracy.
“Now, I’ve seen first hand the power of innovation in America, and it’s not just in Silicon Valley. Centers of innovation are growing across our country bringing with them new opportunities and second chances.
“Now, I recently visited a company called ZeroFOX in South Baltimore. They provide social media security and they gather intelligence on the threats facing employees, businesses, and other organizations online. ZeroFOX is a bright spot in a city like so many others in America that was hit by a hard recession, but was struggling long before then. These communities were centers of industry. They manufactured. Thousands were employed. Then some companies closed up shop. Manufacturing declined. People lost their livelihoods.
“But America is not a story of decline. Even today you can see communities rising again not by trying to recreate the past, but by looking to the future. New centers of innovation from South Baltimore to San Antonio, North Carolina to Louisiana are spreading across America, bringing with them new economic activity, new construction, new jobs, and especially new hope.
“That’s what our country needs. That’s what working people across America need.
“Now, this package of bills we have before us today is part of the Innovation Initiative, our legislative project to bring innovation into government and to allow innovation to thrive in the private sector. What this package of bills does is help innovators gain access to capital. Because you can ask any business owner or dreamer out there. They know that ideas and work ethic are fundamental, but it takes capital to be able to make those ideas a reality—to make even more success stories in communities across our country like South Baltimore.
“Now, I want to thank the members who worked on these bills: Ann Wagner (MO-02), Tom Emmer (MN-06), Scott Garrett (NJ-05), and, especially, Chairman Jeb Hensarling (TX-05). We need more practical solutions like these to create new opportunities for the American people not in theory, but in their everyday lives.
“I yield back.”