John Danforth: “I want to get back to what I consider to be the main issue raised by S. 4, which is the question of the relationship…”

“I want to get back to what I consider to be the main issue raised by S. 4, which is the question of the relationship between the Federal Government and the private sector on matters of research and development spending. I want to call the Senate's attention to a hearing that was held in the Finance Committee this morning and to the testimony of Mary Lowe Good, who is the Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology. It was a very forthright description of the position with the administration, and I think that it does a good job of helping to clarify what the underlying philosophical question is that is now before the Senate. She was testifying on the issue of the GATT agreement and what has been done to the subsidies code in the GATT agreement. But in the process of her testimony, she talked about science and about technology and about the private sector and about the Government. I want to just read a few portions of that testimony. Under Secretary Good said: The longstanding bipartisan support for technology investments recognizes that Government investment in research and development is essential. New technologies and improvements to promote domestic development often fail to attract sufficient private sector investment. The risk is often high, and the globalization of the economy is putting tremendous pressure on industry to reduce costs. After several years of cutbacks, major U.S. companies spend less than 22 percent of R&D on long-term projects.…”