John Spratt: “Mr. Chairman, we have three basic principles at issue before us. About 10 years ago, in the midst of all kinds of…”

“Mr. Chairman, we have three basic principles at issue before us. About 10 years ago, in the midst of all kinds of procurement excesses, Congress amended procurement law and established in the Competition and Contracting Act a vigorous commitment to the principle of free, full, and open competition. Basically, the philosophy of that was that if we had full and open competition, we could say to the public, ``This is the public's money you are spending. You are getting your value's worth because it is a result, what we are doing, the contracts we are awarding are a result of full, open, and vigorous competition.'' So I think that we can still say 10 years later any deviation from full and open competition ought to be staunchly defended. I think we ought to be wary right now of deviating from full and open competition for a particular reason. We are downsizing acquisition in the defense arena, drastically cutting the amount that we appropriate every year for the so-called investment accounts, research and development and procurement, by huge percentages. There is a tendency there for the haves, for those who are now defense contractors, to want to exclude the others because the pie is shrinking, and there are just so many pieces you can cut out of a shrinking pie.”