Bob Kerrey: “I believe the last 7 years in the United States we have seen a dramatic transformation in the United States Congress…”

“I believe the last 7 years in the United States we have seen a dramatic transformation in the United States Congress from one of an expectation almost that the Japanese and other Asian nationals are going to overwhelm us. I remember very well in 1991 the debate was: Will the U.S. currency be devalued in the end? Could our automobile manufacturers survive? Could our computer manufacturers survive? There were a lot of people who reached the conclusion that we would not be able to do that, and what we ought to do is adopt the Japanese model, to have the Government much more involved in the decisionmaking businesses, with a much closer relationship, and industrial policy was quite popular at the time. We chose a different direction. We enacted in 1990, and in 1993 and again enacted in 1997, legislation that imposed fiscal discipline on the Federal Government.”