Jim Inhofe: “You know, that is one of the three bottom lines here. It is just so logical that if you have five operating at…”

“You know, that is one of the three bottom lines here. It is just so logical that if you have five operating at 50-percent capacity--as they said in this overdraft quoted out of their report; they said it over and over again--you have to close two and transfer the workload. Now, the whole idea of privatization came up--and I hate to say it, but it was highly political. We all get political right before an election. This is what happened right before the election. And it happened out in California. There are a lot of electoral votes in California. The administration said: ``We want to privatize in place.'' But clearly you are right. The Senator from Georgia is exactly right. That does not resolve the problems. A minute ago I said there are three bottom lines. That is one bottom line. Another bottom line is the fact that this is a national defense issue. How can we be sure that if there is a war, if Iran decides they are going to use some of that technology and the systems they are getting out of China or Russia and go to war with us, that we are going to be in a position to fight that war? It is a national security issue so that if we do get in a war, we will not become dependent, for those core activities, on a private contractor. You know, I am all for privatization in place. But that is the other issue. The third, of course, is cost. Those who say that GAO did not consider privatization in place, they did. The GAO was before our committee. You were there with me.…”