[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 167 (Wednesday, December 5, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H8847]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            BEEFING UP RESEARCH TO STIMULATE ECONOMIC GROWTH

  (Mr. SMITH of Michigan asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I introduced a bill, 
H.R. 3400, that I think moves in the direction of establishing spending 
priorities. That legislation provides for beefing up the kind of 
research that is going to stimulate economic growth. A companion bill 
develops extra protection against cyber terrorism.
  I chair the Subcommittee on Research of the Committee on Science. The 
bill increases our emphasis on basic research for information 
technology and networking, which has been so important in our economic 
expansion. The other bill increases our research effort to counter 
cyberterrorism. We will take up these two bills tomorrow in the 
Committee on Science.
  As we approach additional spending on defense, we need to understand 
that defense spending has gone down while social spending since 1991 
has increased by about 30 percent; and we need to start setting 
priorities that are going to help the two main goals that this Congress 
should be looking at: one is the defense and security of the people of 
this country, and the other is continued economic growth.
  Our goal should be to reduce spending that is lower priority so as to 
accommodate security and economic needs without mounting huge deficits.

                          ____________________