Jack Kingston: “I offer this amendment with Ms. McCollum from Minnesota today. In fact, it was her amendment from last year that got me…”

“I offer this amendment with Ms. McCollum from Minnesota today. In fact, it was her amendment from last year that got me involved in this. Basically, what this does is stops the Defense Department from using major sports sponsorships, such as NASCAR motor sports and bass fishing, for a recruitment tool, which is no longer necessary. {time} 1600 There are a number of reasons for this: Number one, it's not effective. On May 18, 2012, Major Brian Creech said in the USA Today that the National Guard's spending $26.5 million dollars to sponsor NASCAR got 24,800 inquiries. Of those, they got 20 potential recruits. Of those, what did they get for the $26 million? Not one single recruit. I want to say again, $26 million, 24,000 inquiries, zero--zero--recruits. It's not effective. Now, the National Guard support group has been going around with this document saying, Oh, yes, but look at all the images that we get. Well, again, out of this, according to their own document, they got 40 recruits. So for the money, if you do the math, that's $72,000 per recruit. And why is that? Well, perhaps because the demographic of NASCAR is that 69 percent of the people are over 35. So when they go and they're pushing their brand or advertising at NASCAR, nearly 70 percent of the people aren't eligible. That's not their target group.…”