Haley Stevens: “I regret the disagreement with the Senator from Iowa. It appears to me the process we are following is one that has been…”

“I regret the disagreement with the Senator from Iowa. It appears to me the process we are following is one that has been worked out by the authorization committees, by the Appropriations Committees, and by the administration. It is really a nonpartisan area we are dealing with of trying to assure the survival of the defense industrial base and maintain that at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayers. I do believe they have had some profits and there are profits that are coming back, primarily because they are writing off a lot of losses. They are abandoning a lot of buildings, selling buildings at a lot less than they paid for them. I expect we will see a period of time where there is some recouping of losses through tax advantages. That is another subject. I do think that is one of the incentives toward the restructuring, to try and take the losses and take advantage of them while there is still income from existing contracts. I can reassure the Senate when we are paying 60 percent less than we were 10 years ago for procurement, we are not expanding the industrial base. This restructuring is reducing it. It is downsizing it. I hope we will end up by maintaining what we need.”