Bill Clinton: “Yes, we're trying to take the capacities, the skills, the technologies that were developed in the big defense build-up…”

“Yes, we're trying to take the capacities, the skills, the technologies that were developed in the big defense build-up of the 1980's, and instead of just letting those technologies and the abilities of those people go to waste, we want to give them a chance to be used in the commercial sector in a way that helps both national defense by keeping that skill and that technology alive and helps to rebuild the domestic economy and to create jobs. Today we announced the first of what will be four announcements between now and the end of November in the technology research project, which involved 41 projects from California to Maine from former defense contractors or current defense contractors using technologies in defense for domestic purposes. In San Diego, the University of San Diego and Muller International and a company called Trans-Science Corporation are using the composite materials developed for the Stealth aircraft to build and repair bridges. And they're working on a bridge in San Diego now. And this is just one of, as I said, over 40 projects. California got a large number of these projects but so did several other States that have been hurt by base closing and defense cutbacks. They were all given out on the merits, I assure you, and now what the companies have to do is to negotiate with our defense conversion projects to make sure that the Government and the companies all put up a fair amount of money. Then they'll start hiring people and going to work. We're very excited about it. Mr. Clark. Mr. President, some claim that if it was a good idea, a strong company would run with that idea. Do you run a risk of propping up a bad company or a bad idea?”