Douglas Alexander: “We had a good discussion yesterday on the America COMPETES Act. To remind all Senators, this is the Reid-McConnell…”

“We had a good discussion yesterday on the America COMPETES Act. To remind all Senators, this is the Reid-McConnell legislation, with 56 cosponsors, which seeks to help our country keep our brainpower advantage so we can keep our jobs. It is the result of 2 years of work within this body through three committees principally but really five or six. We asked the National Academy of Sciences to tell us exactly what we need to do to keep our competitive advantage in the world in competition with China and India so our jobs don't go there, so we can keep this remarkable situation we have of producing 30 percent of all the money each year for 5 percent of the people, with at least half of that based on our technological advantage. The National Academy of Sciences gave us a list of recommendations in priority order. The Council on Competitiveness formed the basis of a Lieberman-Ensign bill, the President made his own recommendations, and all that now has been worked through into this legislation.”