Austin Scott: “I want to mention just one other point, too, that I think we need to bring out and that is government contracting under…”

“I want to mention just one other point, too, that I think we need to bring out and that is government contracting under the Bush administration. We cannot be fearful to do our jobs. We get out here and we run every other year and we tell people we are going to go up there and do the job of a Congressman. As I mentioned, there are two things we have got to do: make sure we are good stewards of the taxpayer dollars and then do the oversight. Well, here is what our oversight has pulled out. Between 2000 and 2005, the value of Federal contracts increased by 86 percent, from $203 billion in 2002 to $377.5 billion in 2005. This growth in contracting was over five times faster than the overall inflation rate and almost twice as fast as the growth in other discretionary Federal spending over this period; and as a result of the rapid growth in procurement spending, nearly 40 cents of every discretionary Federal dollar now goes to private contractors, a record level, and Federal procurement spending is highly concentrated on a few, just a few, large contractors with the five largest Federal contractors receiving over 20 percent of the contracting dollars awarded in 2005. The fastest growing contractor under the Bush administration has been Halliburton. Federal spending in Halliburton contracts increased over 600 percent between 2000 and 2005. All I am saying, Mr. Speaker, is we have got to look and examine how the taxpayers' dollars are being spent.…”