Political Quotes

“I thank my friend from Virginia for yielding. I am entirely sympathetic to my friend from California's view that it is probable, maybe even certain, the Defense Department could function with fewer civilian employees than it does right now. And I think the Secretary of Defense shares our conviction because he has frozen the number of civilian employees at FY 2010 levels. Now, here is my concern with the gentleman's amendment. The gentleman's amendment makes it the law of the land that the correct number of civilian employees in the Department of Defense 5 years from now should be 40,000 persons, more or less, fewer than we have right now. I don't know if that is the right or the wrong number. And I would suggest, frankly, that none of us here know if that is the right or the wrong number. The proper way to go about this, which the Secretary has in fact done, is to make an assessment of the needs of the Department and the functions that it serves and then to balance those needs against the three ways you can serve those needs. You can either have civilian employees perform the task, you can hire outside contractors to perform the task, or you can delegate the task to uniformed employees.…”