Political Quotes

“Over the last few years, the prevailing trend within the Department of Defense has been an increased bias for the use of Federal employees to perform commercial services. This pendulum has swung too far in the direction of a noncompetitive, Big Government model. Congress is cutting the defense budget by $487 billion over the next 10 years and simultaneously preventing the Pentagon from utilizing free market competition to drive down the cost of doing business. We must take the handcuffs off the Department of Defense and allow the Secretary to shop for the best products and services at the best price. I am offering amendment 17, which simply returns balance to civilian employees and private contractors in the Department of Defense. My amendment removes any bias towards private or public workforce performance of commercial activities. It allows the Secretary of Defense more options and discretion to efficiently manage taxpayer money authorized to run his Department. In 2010, then-Secretary Gates admitted, ``We weren't seeing the savings we had hoped for from insourcing.'' Despite the candid assessment, the Department of Defense remains prohibited from utilizing any form of competition when looking for new commercial services, and it is too often directed to insource services that are currently being performed by private contractors.…”