Bud Shuster: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just want to echo what the gentleman from Washington said. This is an extremely…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just want to echo what the gentleman from Washington said. This is an extremely important program to small business that operates in the defense industrial base. We are making it more and more difficult for them to operate. This fund, the Rapid Innovation Fund, is just the solution to keeping them involved in the innovation and coming out with new products, faster products. So in the long run, this is going to save money. It is going to have new products the warfighters need. This fund has been very important to them. Mr. Larsen and I chaired a panel on this, a panel on business challenges in the defense industry. We traveled the country listening to small businesses. This was what they asked for. It was so important to the development of their products. In fact, when we started this, we had Secretary Rumsfeld come before the committee and say, when I asked him, What would you recommend to businesses doing business with the Department of Defense? And he said, I recommend they don't do business. It's so difficult. In fact, he said, It's like sleeping with a hippopotamus. Eventually, it's going to roll over and crush you, and it will never know that it did it. This is extremely important to the small business community to keep them engaged. The big defense contractors need the small folks there developing and innovating. I urge a ``no'' vote on the Coffman amendment.”