Political Quotes

“They usually do. But I would just say again here, we're not talking about things in national security or in defense for which there is no commercial application, for which companies that invest in this kind of research would not reap a windfall, the reason for which the profit motive incentivizes companies to invest in these things. Why in the world does government have to be the investor of last resort in what are, quote, transformational energy research for which the industry by itself cannot or will not support due to its high risk? I mean, if it's that high risk, believe me, we shouldn't be taking it. If venture capital out there won't do it, we shouldn't be doing it either with money that we're borrowing from venture capitalists and others who have a little better idea than we do. When we go out and support corn ethanol for 30 years, for crying out loud, or some of these other things and we keep doing it and saying, Yeah, it's going to come around one of these days and this is just a promising new area of research, come on. We're $14 trillion in debt. We have negotiations going on right now over at the White House or somewhere else trying to figure a way to raise the debt ceiling to spend more. Isn't it time that we review programs like this, where we are trying to replace what is not happening in the private sector or trying to outguess the private sector? And I just tell you, if we can't cut here, I don't know where we're going to cut, I really don't.…”