congressman john porter who spent his entire career on nih problems and senator connie mack who had ased concern with cancer both came to cs and they brought with them every vice president for research of every pharmaceutical in the country. we had a meeting of 70 people and they said this is a function of jobs. you want really high-value american jobs, you invest in basic research. you want to have the most competitive economy on the planet you invest in basic research. you want to have the best national security, you invest in basic research. those things have carried us or 150 years and it is utter foolishness to walk away from the things that have worked and that means those of us who are conservative have to win the argument with other conservatives about the centro the of government investment. iowa's point out the transgression i always point out the transcontinental railroad was built with a huge part of the senate. it did not happen randomly. even the wealth of nations argues there are times and places for national security reasons when government should be shaping the market

market, i would argue the areas we're talking about are a key part of it i give john porter and connie mack a great deal of credit for us to build the momentum to double nih's budget. >> just curious, has private sector funding increased to fill the gaps. private sectors would be do more? >> there's some areas of private sector activity that you can see where there's been an investment, there are two things that operate against that. the first is wall street is very, very one quarter at a time minded. the analysts don't look at the great age of bell labs, the analysts would not look at a 20 year investment strategy and give you a really good mark. most ceo's are driven toward short term optimization. there's a second part to this, most economists agree i don't think there's much doubt. when you're talking about fundamental breakthroughs, everybody has an incentive to hope somebody else will pay for it. frankly, if it's a big breakthrough. the jet engine is probably as good an example as any. jet engines were really complicated and experimental in 1945. once we had built good jet engines for

ray: connie mack and mary bono. brian: how about the guy with two wives? i will mention his name. we had liddy dole and bob dole. don: and a number of cases wives succeeded their husbands. in the dull case, she ran on her own as a senator from north carolina. most of the other cases, the senator died. like daddy is haraway -- thaddeus haraway, his wife took his seat. brian: this is the nuclear option. what is that? don: a parliamentary device. it has to do with trying to reduce the number of votes needed to invoke cloture to cut off debate scene can have a final vote. and the senate, the most it takes is 60 votes. in the last congress, the majority party was able to engineer a situation in which they were able to get cloture and do a simple majority are all nominations below the level of the supreme court. brian: is harry reid, who was behind changing this, you only needed a simple majority? >> to the average america adapting the rules to make the senate work is common sense. this is not democrats versus republicans. this is making washington work regardless of who is in the white

and i begin john parter and connie mack a great deal of credit for making it possible to build the momentum to double nih budget. >> as federal funding has dwindled, has private sector funding increases to fill the gap. sometimes you hear that argument, that private sector should be doing more. >> look, there are some areas of private sector activity that you can see where there has been an investment but there are two things that operate against that. the first is the -- that wall street is very very one quarter at a time minded. so the analysts don't look at the grade age of bell labs, the analysts would not look at a 20 year investment strategy and give you a good mark. so most ceos are driven by the finance system toward short-term optimization in a way that undermines the investment you are describing. but there is a second part to this. and most economist agrees with this, i don't think there is much doubt when you are talking about fundamental break-throughs, everybody has an in sentive to hope somebody else will pay for it. that is just an objective of reality. and frankly, if it is

and congressman john porter that spent his entire career on nih problems and senator connie mack youa very family-based concerned with cancer throughout his entire family history both campuses and they brought with them every vice president for research at every pharmaceutical in the country. and we had a meeting about 70 people and they said look, this is a function of jobs and senator warren said. you want high-value american jobs? invest in basic research. you want a really have the most competitive economy on the planet once you invest in basic research. you want the best national security in the world? you invest in basic research. those things that carried us for 150 years and it is a period of utter foolishness to walk away from the things that work. that also means candidly those of us who are conservatives as i am have to win the argument about the conservatives about the centrality of government investment. i always point out to people at transcontinental -- the transcontinental railroad was built with the senate. it didn't happen randomly. i would argue the heirs viewing a

i remember when i was the father of devolution along with connie mack from florida when we were both serve serving in the house. it says you repeal the federal highway taxes and then make them local taxes, make them state taxes so the states are participating, there's two problems with that. one is, how do you get across a uniform program across this -- the country? if you take wyoming, for example, and they repeal their federal tax, in order to make up for it, since there are very few people in wyoming but there are a lot of roads, they'd have to pass a 48-cent tax increase. it is not going to happen. devolution is based on the assumption that all states will pass a tax increase. and that's something that isn't going to happen. so that's -- the other reason that we really need to have this -- and we will; we're going to pass it, and i think in the final analysis that the house will, too. l i want to share with you -- i say to the president presiding that when we had our last bill -- not -- it wasn't all that good. it was only a 127-month bill. i can -- it was only a 27-month bill. i

i can talk about this because going back 25 years ago at that time a guy named connie mack, who was a house member and later a senator from florida he and i were the fathers of devolution. you didn't know that, did you? we're the ones who introduced the devolution bill. the idea sounded so good on the stump because you can say well, we just repealed all the federal taxes and make state taxes out of them. well it didn't quite work that way because you can't do that. if you repeal a federal tax then you have to pass a state tax. now, how many people here think think -- are naive enough to believe that all 48 contiguous states would be willing to pass a sizable state tax increase. it's not going to happen. and so that's why the national highway system is so important. that's why eisenhower started this thing back in 1956. because we have friends -- my friends up in wyoming, there are very few people in wyoming but there are a lot of roads and that's part of our national highway system. now, if you did this if you did a devolution project, they would have to pass a 48-cent per gallon gaso