From some of the things I've read in the newspaper, I think there are already some positive responses on the House side, and we've already had that kind of support in the Senate. The outgoing Speaker of the House is a strong supporter of technology. Hopefully the incoming Speaker will be as well, and we'll be able to get some support from him or from other senior people in the House. Research funding competes with many other important priorities for Congress. Technology has been a very high-growth industry, and the growth has been disinflationary.
Technology creates high-paying jobs and it keeps the industry in the United States.
It helps to produce the kind of strong budget surpluses that we are seeing right now because these high-tech companies are profitable and they pay a lot of taxes. These are the types of industries that grow the economy. Investments that the United States made in the Sputnik era are now paying off. We need to make similar kinds of investments so we will have that kind of money available to help pay for Social Security benefits when the baby-boomers retire. The only way we are going to solve that problem, other than by cutting benefits substantially, is to grow the economy.