Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak today on behalf of H.R. 2749, the Protecting Business Opportunities for Veterans Act of 2017. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their support for Ranking Member Kuster and myself. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2749 aims to provide the VA with the tools it needs to correct the persistent problem in contracting. The problem is improper pass-throughs. An improper pass-through is when a small business obtains a contract under a set-aside, but gives all or substantially all of the work to a large company and, nonetheless, collects profit. Sometimes multiple companies pass through the work while adding price markups. This has long been prohibited by law and wastes taxpayer dollars; but, in practice, agencies have little ability to stop it. In the VA, veteran-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses have special preference to receive contracts, but bad actors are taking contracts away from law-abiding veteran businessowners who truly want to perform their work. The committee gets complaints about this situation nearly every week. This bill will make every bidder for a VA contract certify that it will perform the percentage of work the law already requires. The bill also directs the VA to work with the Office of Inspector General in a more effective way to find, stop, and, where appropriate, punish the improper pass-throughs. H.R. 2749 relies on existing law and fills in gaps in implementation, but does not create any new bureaucracy.…”