Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I want to first of all state very clearly that, in my opinion, both the chair and ranking member are strong supporters of our Navy and of a strong national defense, and any push in terms of these amendments is not a criticism of them at all in terms of the great work that they and their staff do putting forward a Defense Appropriations bill. Again, very quickly, this amendment really just is an opportunity to try to take advantage of the savings that my friend, Mr. Wittman, described. Block buy purchases have been tremendously successful. The last block contract for Virginia class, the Block IV, the PEO of submarines, Dave Johnson, was always very proud of the fact that we got 10 submarines for the price of 9 because of using the advantages of bulk purchases, which anyone who shops in Costco knows exactly what he was talking about. Again, that is a fact, that we achieved great savings by using the block buy purchase mechanism. So I certainly strongly support Mr. Wittman's efforts here. Again, I note that the $49 million that Mr. Visclosky talked about is in the amendment that is fast approaching, but it was not to cut the program; it was talking to the Navy, a recognition that the change orders that occurred in the last carrier, which is first in class, will not occur to the same extent.…”