Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, the difference between the gentlewoman's approach and ours is that we believe that the services should continue to be able to take a measured approach to whether or not using privatized unaccompanied housing is appropriate and whether or not, as the gentlewoman's amendment would do, encourage the services to go to privatization for unaccompanied housing. We see the track record that is unfettered. Going forward on privatizing housing has not gone well, and it has been expensive, costly, and it has also contributed to the problem that we are having with retention of our servicemembers. We have heard testimony over the last few years from servicemembers who have been in neglected privatized family housing, and it has caused many of the servicemembers to throw the towel in and just say: You know what? I wanted to make a career out of being in the military, but obviously the services don't care about me and don't care about my family or exposing my children to lead paint, mold, and other really serious problems. We are not at a point where we should be encouraging privatization of housing. We should allow the services to take a measured approach to pursue privatized unaccompanied housing when they think it is appropriate and make sure that there is appropriate accountability in place, which this amendment doesn't ensure. I would urge Members to vote against it, and I yield back the balance of my time.”