On the numbers issue itself, it's difficult to address this because I don't think anybody has seen how Finance calculates this. It would be nice to sit down with Finance and figure this out.
Our calculations going forward, if we're looking at refundability from the current year forward, and taking into consideration that one-third of the credit is collected in revenue because all these credits are taxable anyway, here the numbers we're coming up with even on a five-year basis are something more like $3.5 billion. It's much less than what Finance is saying.
I think industry would very much like to sit down with Finance. In Finance's statement itself it says that these incentives were put in place because there are very good economic reasons. In Finance's own words, the economic benefits far outweigh the costs of the tax credit itself, so I don't know how that jives with their recommendations.
But I would also say that this is part of an overall. What we have to look at is industrial innovation. Tax credits are a very important part of that. I would recommend to this committee that one issue you would want to look at going forward is how can we strengthen the linkages between the research that's being done, the great research, in this country, and the actual--not commercialization of the technologies from the research--application of that research to industrial innovation? That's where most of the money is generated.
Finally, I'd also like to recognize the leadership of you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of this committee. We wouldn't be talking about these issues if it had not been for the unanimous recommendations of this committee.
Thank you all very much for that.