Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, a strong military is certainly essential at a time when we face so many threats, from Russia's war crimes in Ukraine to threats from the People's Republic of China and North Korea to constant cyberattacks. Paying for this security is very costly. It accounts for almost one- half of every dollar discretionarywise that we approve each year in the Congress. Of those dollars, almost one-half of the defense dollars goes to defense contractors--billions and billions of dollars. While designed to ensure that we get more national security, this national defense authorization should also be doing more to provide taxpayer security--security from being ripped off by price gouging and by war profiteering. As currently written, this bill provides insufficient protection for taxpayers regarding the private defense industry, which can too often extract monopoly prices and demand basically a blank check for weapons and military supplies that are essential to our servicemembers. An industry that is basically self-policing itself without much competition and without much of a watchdog inevitably leads to overcharging. Since the 1990s, there has been massive consolidation of defense contractors, and at the same time, the Pentagon has cut tens of thousands of contract negotiators and watchdogs, leading to less oversight, less transparency, and too little accountability.…”