Political Quotes

“My comments are simply this, and why I oppose the amendment: I understand the intentions of this and the concerns that have been raised, but I think they are bogus in this case. I think we have--what we are doing to some extent is we are allowing the Government buyer, if my colleague will, the contracting officer or procurement officers--to make some decision, but we are allowing it earlier in the game. I was a procurement attorney for 15 years, and I can tell the gentleman many times we would go out there and spent tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, of dollars on a procurement and never really have had a chance at it at all after that money was spent. As I understand, if this amendment is defeated, one can still bid on the procurement. There is no bar to anyone bidding on these procurements, but they will know earlier in the process, before vast sums are expended, that they are outside the competitive range. That is a savings to these small firms, and many of them, I think, would welcome this.”