Political Quotes

“there is concern. Because when we move to a credit card system, the government buyers are under an obligation to try to look at the entire market, the entire array of sellers to the best of their ability. They are required to try to be good purchasers, to get the best value. That means, in most cases, the lowest price. But not always. And there is always a fear in the small business community that we are going to have a buyer who is going to choose their favorite seller, if you will, or their favorite company and simply move contracts that way. And so, small businesses are always concerned about this. On the other side, sometimes we end up, because we have a very complicated system of contracting, we end up paying $500 for $100 desks after we have gone through all the competitions and all the things that attend that and, ultimately, write a fairly complicated contract. So the idea is let us give our buyers for the small amounts for the small goods, let us assign them a certain element of discretion and presume that they are going to be honest and have good judgment, and that when they go down to buy office equipment and other things that come up under the $2,500 threshold, that they are going to use good judgment and that they are going to use the small business community in a practical way and they are going to spread these purchases around. And that means that we pay $100 for the $100 desk instead of $500.”