Richard Gephardt: “Mr. Chairman, Members of the House, I rise against the Walker amendment, and I rise to speak in favor of this bill. As I…”

“Mr. Chairman, Members of the House, I rise against the Walker amendment, and I rise to speak in favor of this bill. As I understand it, the Walker amendment would make it impossible to go forward with the intent of their bill and, therefore, I would hope that we would not go along with that amendment. If there are legitimate concerns, I think as the author of the bill has said, those concerns can be worked on, but I want to spend my time today talking about what I think the Kanjorski-Ridge amendment is really about. In its simplest form, it is about jobs. It is about our willingness as a Government and as a people to really help small, struggling businesses and ultimately, I think, it is about our very ability to compete with foreign nations that, quite frankly, up until now have given their small business people much more help than our Government has been willing to do. Now, right now, the American taxpayer is spending millions and, in fact, billions of dollars for research in our labs, in our colleges, in our universities, and in the private sector, and a lot of that research could be brought to bear in our small businesses. It could help to modernize, stay competitive, and, frankly, innovate an entire industry. But the fact is too often this good work gathers dust on a Government shelf. We are not doing enough to share the fruits of our research, and a lot of it is simply going to waste.”