Sam Farr: “Mr. Chairman, I really want to rise to question what is really broke here. If we say that the military defense industry…”

“Mr. Chairman, I really want to rise to question what is really broke here. If we say that the military defense industry is broke because they cannot compete in the world, then we have to look at the fact that 70 percent of the world market is controlled by U.S. industry, so we would not say that U.S. industry is really hurting there. If we say, well, this is an impact on American industry that other foreign competitors do not have, we have to look at the way this industry generates its revenue. The taxpayers of this country have put forth $30 billion in R&D military research money. The law, which has been in effect for a number of years, estimates that in the next 5 years it is going to recoup from that $30 billion investment $1 billion. That is certainly not a very good return on the taxpayers' investment. I think we have to also compare that we put a lot of money into universities. When universities come up with an idea and invent it, they patent it, and that goes into marketing that idea and the university is able to recoup over time the invention, the effort in that invention. I mean, they own it. What we are saying here is that the American taxpayers own this invention, They put the money in and they ought to get something back for it.”