America Competes Reauthorization Act of 2015
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCALISE. I thank my colleague, the chairman from Texas, for yielding and for his leadership in bringing the America COMPETES Act to the floor.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the America COMPETES Act. If you look at what we are trying to do here, we want America to maintain our competitive edge, to create good-paying jobs here at home. But to do that, we need to invest wisely and responsibly in basic scientific research.
After years of overspending and the administration expanding programs way beyond the core missions of the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, the COMPETES Act prioritizes taxpayer dollars to support basic research in biology, chemistry, math, engineering, and computer science. American taxpayers' dollars are being spent on programs that do not meet the national interest or help invest in our future.
I want to point out some of the wasteful spending that is being eliminated by this legislation, the America COMPETES Act.
Mr. Chairman, $340,000 of taxpayer money is being spent to study human-set fires in New Zealand in the 1800s--taxpayer dollars here in America are being spent on that; $50,000 to study civil lawsuits in Peru from 1600 to 1700; $487,000 to study textiles and gender in Iceland from 874-1800, during the Viking era; $697,000 for ``The Great Immensity,'' a musical about climate change.
This is what taxpayer dollars are being spent on, Mr. Chairman, at a time when Americans are tightening their belts and are looking to Washington to do what they are doing in being fiscally responsible.
This refocuses what we are supposed to be trying to do to promote science, to promote computer science, as a computer scientist, the things that are going to help American workers be successful--not all of this foolishness that is wasting taxpayer money. It is a great bill that actually prioritizes the taxpayer dollars of this country. I urge my colleagues to pass it.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source