Political Quotes

“I come to the floor because this week, hopefully, our House colleagues will be taking up legislation that they have named America COMPETES. My colleague was just here on the Senate floor talking about the legislation we passed last year, and we are glad our colleagues are finally addressing this in the House of Representatives. I said ``glad'' they are ``addressing''--we are happy about that because, between 1996 and 2015, federally funded research led to over $1 trillion in economic growth and millions of new jobs. So we know that when we invest, we see a big return in our economy. What we know, however, is that R&D investment is at its lowest point in nearly 45 years, as measured as a percentage of GDP. That is where we have been going. And the rest of the world isn't waiting. Overall, U.S. R&D spending places us ninth globally, behind advanced economies like South Korea, Japan, and Germany, and far below the fifth place ranking that we held in the 1990s. So this is why we need to do something, and that is why we passed what was called the United States Innovation and Competition Act last year and why we encouraged our colleagues to take it up. There is a competition for global leadership in technology in a range of areas-- semiconductors, manufacturing, artificial intelligence, low-Earth orbit satellites.…”