[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 20666-20667]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



     URGING DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE TO END NONSENSE AGAINST MICROSOFT

  (Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, hopefully Tuesday, September 26, 
marked the turning point in the misguided antitrust suit against 
Microsoft when the Supreme Court turned down a Hail-Mary plea by the 
government to hear Microsoft's appeal.
  Two new studies, one from the Institute of Policy Innovation and one 
from the Association for Competitive Technology calculate the annual 
economic damages caused to our economy would range between $20 billion 
and $75 billion a year.
  I would like to quote Milton Friedman, the Nobel Laureate Economist 
who said, ``Silicon Valley is suicidal in calling government in to 
mediate in the disputes among some of the big companies in the area and 
Microsoft. The end result will be that an industry that up to now has 
been able to proceed at a marvelous pace with little or no government 
regulation is now going to have government all over it. It is going

[[Page 20667]]

to spend in legal fees over the next 10 or 20 years, money which 
society would benefit from much more if it were spent in the kind of 
research and development that has brought us many miracles in the area 
of Internet, in the area of home computers, industry computers, and all 
the rest.''
  The Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman, Charles Munger, says ``The 
Justice Department could hardly have come up with a more harmful set of 
demands than those it now makes. If it wins, our country will end up 
hobbling its best-performing high-tech businesses.''
  I urge an end to this madness.

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