Tom Coburn: “Let me reclaim my time. I thank the Senator for answering my question. I guess the difference is, in the long run, where…”

“Let me reclaim my time. I thank the Senator for answering my question. I guess the difference is, in the long run, where is the benefit? If any of those industries are going to survive, they are going to be putting research dollars into those areas already. That is my contention. We know from the studies that, of all the Fortune 500 companies, the money that has been given to them they would have spent anyway. This is just money that they don't have to spend because we are going to spend American taxpayer dollars on it. The fact is, anybody in any of those areas, especially major companies that have all the capital resources they need--they have an inherent self-interest to fund that research. Why? Because their livelihood and their existence depends on it. What we are doing is we are saying, for the big companies, the Fortune 500 companies, we are going to take away their risk. The market has already created the risk. Their risk is to develop the program. So I would disagree. I think it is corporate welfare, especially with regard to the Fortune 500 companies that have significant assets. All you have to do is look at what is out there today, look at the share buy-backs. They have more than enough money with which to fund all these things. I can give you specific examples from GE, IBM, and Intel. All of those projects were going to be funded anyway. We just gave them a gift. We just simply gave them a gift.”