On the recordMarch 9, 2011
I want to thank the gentleman from California for bringing this to our attention. I've been thinking a lot about the role of research and development to the 21st century and to 21st-century job creation. In fact, I've introduced along with you and a number of our colleagues, my colleague from Maryland, Republican Roscoe Bartlett, H.R. 689 which is the 21st Century Reinvestment Act. The goal is to invest in research and development, expand our tax credit for research and development, make it permanent, and then link it to manufacturing. Here has been my experience. In the Fourth Congressional District, we are home to some of the most fantastic research innovation that's happening anywhere in the country. That's true all across the country, but these sorts of robust and innovative firms, many of them are small firms. They can't afford to just front-load R&D to create manufacturing jobs, but they need the government to have a tax policy that actually encourages that. So I am all in favor, actually, of a tax policy that encourages the positive things that we want, research and development, job creation, manufacturing. Instead, what did we get out of Congress? We got a tax bill that rewards the top 2 percent with tax breaks that they're never going to put back into the economy.
