John Danforth: “first, I would like to express my appreciation to both Senator Burns and Senator Bradley because I think what they have…”

“first, I would like to express my appreciation to both Senator Burns and Senator Bradley because I think what they have done is to create a sense of bipartisanship and focus on the issue before us. Clearly, we were pretty well divided on a party basis. But Senator Burns, supporting the chairman, and Senator Bradley, supporting me, in this amendment has created a sense of bipartisanship on the issue that is now before us. I think one of the points that was made by Senator Bradley deserves special attention; that is, the way the marketplace works is that people invest in good ideas, and if the ideas do not turn out to be good, they withdraw their investment. That is the efficient way of the market's operation. Bad ideas are not pursued. Good ideas are. That is one of the problems that is created when the Federal Government gets into the venture capital business because, while true venture capitalists have real money at risk, they are going to lose something if they lose out. Those of us who are in Government are not really investing our own money. We are investing the taxpayers' money, or what is worse, we are investing borrowed money. We do not sense any personal risk.”