[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 13008]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from Missouri 
for his excellent work on the Small Business Committee in a very 
important area--the dramatic growth in electronic commerce and the 
ability of small businesses to participate in that. We hear so much 
about the family farm and the small business community being in 
jeopardy. As we transition in this economy, to have a chairman of the 
Small Business Committee who is on top of that and working to integrate 
the advances in electronic commerce with our small business community, 
and to make those advances available to them is very important. I 
congratulate him on that, and Senator Mack and Senator Bennett of the 
Joint Economic Committee for a series of hearings this week in the area 
of technology and its impact and continued potential impact on our 
country and on our economy and the world economy.
  These are the things, frankly, we do not do enough of around here, 
looking at the future to see how we can adjust our public policy to 
alleviate not just what the problems are or what the problems were that 
have been with us but how, through innovation, we can form the future 
to alleviate those problems.
  So I am very pleased we are focusing in on the future as opposed to 
just dealing with the current important problems; not looking through 
the rear-view mirror instead of looking in front at the opportunities 
ahead us.

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