Political Quotes

“I wanted to transition into talking about the trade deficit that we're facing in this country. But before I did that, I wanted to close the loop with what Mr. Tonko and Mr. Garamendi have been talking about for my colleagues. {time} 2040 I hear a lot back home. You'll have town hall meetings, and you'll have discussions with people about federally funded research. It seems as though there's always an example somewhere of a research project that seems on the surface to be unjustifiable, and in some cases, people will argue it's ridiculous that we're funding certain things. I just wanted, for my colleagues, to give a couple of examples of federally funded research that has paid huge dividends for everyday life. There was in the late 1970s and early 1980s a big national story about federally funded research that studied the eyesight of eagles. At the time, it was considered to be a mockery--it was of no use to society, and it was a waste of money. Well, lo and behold, what did we get out of that research? We got night vision goggles for our troops who were serving overseas on the military battlefield. We got soft contact lenses. We got so many innovations from that type of research. The touch screen on our everyday iPad was federally funded research out of the University of Delaware, of course many years after what I'm speaking of. The GPS system, which so many of us rely on, was from federally funded research.…”