Jerry Brown: “the Members on the other side have made some interesting statements which I think deserve to be responded to. This last…”

“the Members on the other side have made some interesting statements which I think deserve to be responded to. This last dialogue, for example, which indicates that there has been increased funding for supersonic research and development and that is justified, apparently that is good research or whatever they choose to dignify it with as a name in order to get it in the budget. But the subsonic research, which is essential to our competitive posture in the world, that is bad science or corporate welfare, whichever way they choose to define it, and they use both terms. The fact is that supersonic air transport has been conventional for the last generation. The Concorde is a supersonic transport, and it has been flying for a generation. The United States had a competing supersonic transport and decided not to proceed with it because based upon economic analysis, it would go bankrupt. We were somewhat more subjected to the rigors of the market because we were not subsidizing our supersonic transport like the French are funding theirs, subsidizing theirs. So the argument that it is OK to fund the supersonic transport but not the subsonic, when the basic market is in the subsonic and nobody is ever going to make much money off the supersonic, it seems to me to be a little naive.”