Political Quotes

“My amendment is simple. It says, if you seek to be a Department of Defense contractor and you have previously defrauded the Federal Government, you shouldn't be able to receive a contract from the DOD. According to the Congressional Research Service, in fiscal 2010, the Department of Defense obligated $366 billion to contracts, which is 54 percent, more than half of the total of Department of Defense obligations. There are rules and regulations in place that prevent Federal contracts from going to entities that have broken the law. Under the Federal acquisitions regulation, Federal agencies are required to award contracts only to responsible sources. And Federal acquisition regulation subpart 9104-1 states that a satisfactory record of integrity and business ethics is one of the general standards of responsibility. But the term ``responsible'' is not explicitly defined anywhere in the law, and I know that we cannot try to define new terms using the amendment process, and that's not what we're trying to do here. The fact is that someone could commit fraud against the government and still get a contract with the Department of Defense, and that's wrong. We have to make clear that companies who've defrauded the taxpayers should not be able to get more DOD contracts. I'd like to point out that the underlying bill being debated here contains a specific prohibition against the use of Department of Defense funds in contracts with anyone who has an unpaid tax liability.…”