Sam Brownback: “I rise to speak on the Kennedy amendment to the DOD authorization bill. When I first came into the Senate, I chaired a…”

“I rise to speak on the Kennedy amendment to the DOD authorization bill. When I first came into the Senate, I chaired a subcommittee within the Governmental Affairs Committee that dealt with this issue. We held a number of hearings on the topic of public-private competition. I wish to talk briefly about this legislation and the background of it and why I don't think it is a good idea to move forward on it at this time. In 1998, Congress passed the Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act, the FAIR Act. I was a strong supporter of this legislation, and it passed the Senate unanimously in 1998. This piece of legislation was a compromise between the private sector and unions that, for the first time, codified a process to help assure proper implementation of the 47-year-old Federal policy that states: The government should not be involved in commercial activities. That was a simple Government policy for 47 years, and the FACT Act codified and fleshed out that simple statement, a statement with which everybody agreed.”