Political Quotes

“I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy. I was listening to my dear friend, the gentleman from Texas, who is managing the bill for our Republican friends, and I was struck for a moment when he talked about the disadvantage vis-a-vis China, how--in a few years--we are going to slip behind China in R&D development. He talked about the hundreds of thousands of jobs that could be made available if we were able to redouble our efforts in research and development and the concerns about the overall slippage of the United States into the middle of the pack when it comes to research. I was struck by those words. For a moment, I thought he was talking about the United States infrastructure because we don't have to wait for 3 or 4 or 5 years to slip behind China; we are already being overshown by their efforts. We are investing less than 2 percent of our gross domestic product in infrastructure; the Chinese are investing 8 percent or more. The United States once had the finest infrastructure in the world-- not anymore. Those international ratings that my good friend from Texas talked about are very much the case for our infrastructure. We have dropped from 1st to 5th to 16th to 27th. I want to know where the alarm for my Republican friends is about our falling behind while America falls apart. {time} 1430 We are going to pass before the year is out the research and development credit. I hope we do it the right way, but we will do it.…”