Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I join my colleague from Illinois to offer a bipartisan commonsense amendment to the Department of Defense appropriations bill. Our amendment cuts $988 million from the bill, which the committee added but the Navy did not request, for a 10th DDG-51 destroyer. It also puts the savings toward deficit reduction. Let's back up for a minute and explain how we got here. As part of the Department of Defense's new strategy, they are realigning force structure by reducing ground forces and making new investments in more agile sea and air forces. Toward this end, the Navy has entered into a multiyear procurement--or MYP--arrangement to purchase nine DDG-51 destroyers over the next 5 years. In order to fulfill one year of this MYP arrangement, the Navy requested just over $3 billion in the FY13 budget, yet the committee took it upon itself to give the Navy an extra billion dollars it didn't request and likely doesn't need for a 10th destroyer. To be fair, there was talk of purchasing a 10th destroyer, but on March 29, 2012, Sean Stackley, the Navy's acquisition executive, testified before a House Armed Services Subcommittee that he thought through competition he could get 10 ships for the price of 9.…”