Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I rise today as chairman of the House Small Business Committee to support the en bloc amendment, which includes the bipartisan amendment offered by Mr. Connolly of Virginia and myself. It is really commonsense acquisition reform. There are numerous small business contracting programs aimed at ensuring that the Department of Defense has a reliable small business technological and industrial base, but we rarely look at the results of these programs. The current method used to assess the health of the small business base focuses almost exclusively on one factor, and that is prime contract dollars. While this is an important factor, we are missing a lot of the picture. For example, the current method ignores the fact that since 2013 we have lost over 25 percent of the small firms registered to do business with the Federal Government. That is over 100,000 small businesses that are no longer competing for contracts. We also have a declining small business participation rate, which threatens the core principle of competition. It is basic supply and demand: when there are fewer offers, prices go up. And that harms the taxpayer. That is what we are trying to deal with. I urge my colleagues to support this.”