Political Quotes

“I am pleased to come to the floor tonight to talk about a bill, S. 3084, the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act. This is a piece of legislation that has taken several years of patience, perseverance, a lot of hard work, and testimony from both sides of the aisle. I am pleased that Senator Peters from Michigan and I have finally been able to come up with a product that has the strongest bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House. This is an effort that builds on the America COMPETES legislation. America COMPETES was first passed over a decade ago as an effort to make the United States more competitive economically, an effort to make sure we had the skills and our workers, the STEM force education to compete with nations around the world as global competition increases, as other nations try to gain an advantage over the United States in their manufacturing processes and in their innovation processes. The America COMPETES legislation arose from a report that was put together by a group of individuals--very smart business leaders, scientists--known as the ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm'' report, the ``RAGS'' report, the idea being, how are we going to make sure the United States remains competitive and how do we make sure we have the education programs we need in this country to gear the next-generation workforce for a more competitive environment?…”