Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to speak about an amendment I have offered and we will be voting on in a little while. It is amendment No. 216, and it is a basic, very simple amendment, but it will rectify or remedy a problem we have in our contracting. We have all kinds of businesses across the country that are part of the contracting process. But often when we have prime contractors who will have the opportunity to bid on Federal work, they will list subcontractors in their application. In some cases those subcontractors happen to be minority-owned firms and women-owned firms, known, of course, by the acronyms MBE and WBE. So the prime contractors will list them to make their applications more competitive, without informing-- this is where the problem comes in--without informing the subcontractor. This amendment does two basic things, and it is an amendment all of about 13 lines when we get to the heart of it. Basically, what it requires in these instances is that the prime contractor notify the subcontractor. That is part one. Part two is, in these instances where there may be an allegation of fraud or other problems the subcontractor wants to report, the Administrator, in this case, will establish a reporting mechanism that allows that subcontractor to report fraudulent activity by the contractor. So two very basic elements: a notification provision, so if you are a firm that is listed on paperwork a prime contractor files, you be notified of that--that is No.…”