Political Quotes

“not very often will Members hear me contradict the ranking member of the Committee on Small Business. But I rise in opposition to this amendment and will include my entire statement in the Record. I rise in opposition to this amendment, even though I have the utmost respect for its author and have long appreciated her work and her leadership on so many issues which have come before this House. But the amendment before the House today attempts to effectively repeal the Small Business Competitiveness Demonstration Program Act of 1988, better known as the ``Comp Demo'' law, by prohibiting the use of funds to carry out its implementing provisions. Comp Demo has not been an effective tool for over 17 years in helping assure that small businesses across a wide array of industries gain Federal contracts. Equally important, Comp Demo does not affect contracts which are set-aside for minority-owned, socially disadvantaged, and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses. From its inception, the Comp Demo law has sought to address the tendency of agencies to disproportionately rely upon a small number of NAICS codes to meet their small business set-aside goals rather than finding and developing a broad array of codes from which to meet these goals, a practice which, if unremedied, would have the practical effect of precluding small businesses outside those disproportionately used industries from assessing the benefits of the small business set-aside program.…”