Rob Andrews

If I understand it correctly, the gentleman is denying that the spending increases averaged 8 percent during the Bush years. Is that correct?

I think it is important for the House to reflect on what we are and are not doing. What we are doing is considering a procedure by which the Congress can investigate what may or may not have happened in the tragedy that occurred in West…

Reclaiming my time, the best insurance policy against spending increases is a Democratic majority.

I want to strongly support the gentlelady's amendment. I think there is scarcely a Member of this body who has not encountered a situation where a strong, viable business just outside the gate of a military establishment finds frustration…

I want to commend and thank my friend from Virginia for his excellent amendment. We have tried to establish in this bill the idea that the Defense Department should coordinate the industrial base and broaden it so the servicemembers and…

I thank my friend from Mississippi for offering this very well-thought-out amendment. One of the key ideas of this bill is that we have a high-quality, well-trained acquisition workforce. Mr. Childers's amendment makes sure that that…

The Department of Defense, even after you take away the purchase of aircraft carriers or fighter jets or what have you, is spending almost $1 billion every day of the week, every week of the year. Almost $1 billion. And sometimes the…

Not only do we want to increase the number of people working on solving this problem, we want to increase the quality of their work. So this bill provides for education and training. It provides for diversification of our workforce. It…

We support Mr. Hall's amendment. He has been an advocate for government transparency since his first day in this institution. This amendment is a significant stride forward for transparency. Last year's major weapons system bill and this…

I, in fact, support this amendment. I think it not only adds important tools to the bill before the body today but to the law that was enacted last year. Both today's bill and last year's law require the Department of Defense to make early…

I think it makes a very significant contribution to this legislation. What it effectively says is that competition should always be the general rule. Only when there is a compelling reason for an exception should there be one. So, for…

Mr. Hastings makes a very valid amendment to this bill that acknowledges that when we want to build the best workforce and brightest workforce, we should reach for diversity of the workforce. Mr. Hastings' amendment acknowledges the fact…

I commend the gentlemen from North Carolina and from Maine for offering the amendment and support it. The general rule under the law is that the Defense Department must buy goods and services made in the United States. There's an exception…

I would like to thank the gentlelady for offering this amendment and for her fierce advocacy for the people not only of the Milwaukee area, but small businesses across the country. The gentlelady is correct that one of the underlying ideas…

I would like to thank my friend from Connecticut for offering this very important amendment which clarifies the legislation and which, I think, drives home a very important point. He has been very focused, as many of us have, on protecting…

I'd like to thank my friends from Florida, Mr. Grayson and Mr. Hastings, for offering this amendment. It makes eminently good sense. It says this: if a procurement officer decides to buy the product that isn't the least expensive, a couple…

I would urge Members to vote ``yes'' on this motion to recommit because the language of the recommit does what the gentleman's argument doesn't do. The language of this argument says we should have full, accurate transparency about the…

As I stated earlier, the basic mechanism in this bill is to provide performance criteria for the purchasing organizations within the Department of Defense. This amendment says that one criterion may be energy-efficiency standards in the…

I support the amendment. I also share my friend the ranking member's concerns. I think the amendment addresses them in two ways. One is that the language of the amendment is quite flexible, that as long as there is transparency and…

In the CMS report the minority references, the ``M'' stands for Medicare. CMS is in the business of counting and accounting for the Medicare program. Here's what they said: Under the law before the health care bill passed, Medicare was…

There are ugly signals saying that one Holocaust is not enough, that the Jewish state should be wiped off the face of the Earth. We ignore these ugly signals at our own peril. We should learn the terrible history of the thirties and not…

There is a justifiable and broad consensus in our country and in this Congress that the regime in Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. The issue is how to achieve that objective and why to achieve that objective. We cannot act in isolation…

That certainly is my recollection as well that there was virtually unanimous opposition to these new rules of the road, to the people who drove the economy into a ditch. But I will say this, that at least there was a vote, wasn't there…

It's ironic that this Congress funds what are called institutions for democracy that help to teach fledgling nations around the world how to build democratic institutions, and I am glad we do. I think it's good for the country to do that…

Has the gentleman ever been in a situation where the body sees a serious problem and says, look, we have a plan to fix it, but let's not take a yes-no vote on it because let's let a small number of people decide, because they have some…