Rob Bishop: “Even though I appreciate the efforts and the goals of the gentlemen who are introducing this amendment, the experience…”

“Even though I appreciate the efforts and the goals of the gentlemen who are introducing this amendment, the experience at most of our air logistics centers simply means that A-76 has brought along delays; and those delays, even if they're in the form of a study, have caused the work to delay, meaning the product given to the warfighter is delayed, and the fixed cost overhead that our depots obviously have faced have to be paid from some source, which is, indeed, the taxpayer. A-76 is about low cost and not necessarily best value, which means if you're dealing with a market system where something goes out there, you see if it sells or not, that's okay. But you're dealing with military equipment which must be performed and must be prepared on a timely basis and in a specific way. And that is why the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget are both opposing this amendment, as well as why they halted the process in the first place, because they found there are structural flaws inherent in this process. It is better to go about finding a better solution to this, and that is public-private partnerships, which we are already doing at the air logistics centers. By taking the creativity of the private sector with the stability of the public workforce, we actually get the best of both worlds. That would be far better than tearing this open for a food fight that would affect the quality of military equipment which is at stake.”