Dana Rohrabacher: “I rise to warn my colleagues that powerful interest groups are involved in one of the most insidious attacks on the…”

“I rise to warn my colleagues that powerful interest groups are involved in one of the most insidious attacks on the well-being of the American people that I have seen in my 8 years in Congress. It is an insidious attack because a decade from now, if these powerful interests succeed, America will have lost its competitive edge, the standard of living of our people will be in decline, and they will never know what hit them. What is happening is an attack on America's ability to remain the number one technological power in the world. America has had the strongest patent system in the world. Our citizens have enjoyed patent protection that other citizens in other countries have not enjoyed. Thus, our inventors and investors in new innovation have given us technology that has provided the American people with a standard of living far beyond those overseas, and has permitted our people, even though they receive more money for their work, to outcompete people who receive less pay overseas. The American people have enjoyed the technological lead that has given us the light bulb, the telegraph, the telephone, the reaper, the steamboat, and, yes, the airplane. Today our standard of living is tied to technology and in the future will be tied even more to technology, but today we see our patent system, which has done so much for our people, under attack and targeted by powerful foreign interests and multinational corporations.”