mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman from louisiana for yielding me this time . 
the gentleman from washington ( mr. smith ) xz4003791 did talk about some issues that i think are very important , especially when he talked about education . 
i think education is very important for the future of this economy . 
if we look at education spending over the last 5 years , we have had dramatic increases in education , as far as the spending is concerned . 
what we need to do now is focus on math , science , engineering and technology . 
we know this is the direction the future economy is going . 
the world is getting more technically complex , not less technically complex . 
yet we have fewer people going into engineering . 
we have fewer young women going into science . 
we have fewer people going into the technologies , the maths and the sciences . 
it should be concerning to us , and we need to take steps today . 
i would welcome their support as to how we do that . 
national science foundation money , the nsf has come up several times here . 
we increased the nsf again this year , again . 
over $ 5.6 billion will go into nsf this fiscal year and we have plans to increase that funding in the future , too . 
innovative research is very important . 
we need help from the other side of the aisle to get research and development tax relief permanent , and i think we can do that . 
i just want to mention the supply-side tax cut did stimulate the economy . 
we have more people working today than ever before in the history of our nation . 
the average wage is higher than it has ever been in the history of this nation . 
we have more people owning their own homes today than ever before in the history of this nation , and we have done it because we cut taxes . 
more money got into the economy , and jobs started increasing . 
but does that mean we should be satisfied ? 
no . 
we have barriers that need to be removed so that we can increase the number of jobs and the number of opportunities in america in the future . 
i think it is important that we work together . 
i look forward to working with the gentleman from new york ( mr. owens ) xz4003060 on issues like we addressed with sarbanes-oxley , corporate corruption , we had hearings . 
we had hearings ; we had legislation on the floor . 
we made progress . 
we passed sarbanes-oxley . 
and now there are white collar criminals in jail today . 
corporate corruption was addressed and needs to be addressed in the future . 
but certainly we made some movement . 
but i welcome them . 
i know we can agree on creating more jobs . 
i think it is important that we work together to do that . 
