Political Quotes

“I want to say a word about two amendments I have offered, both of which I think are important and both of which should be agreed to. As I think you know, this country has a recordbreaking deficit and a $15 trillion national debt. What many people do not know is that one of the reasons our deficit is as high as it is is because there is a significant amount of fraud from defense contractors who sell their products to the Department of Defense. I think the American people are very clear that when we pay one dollar for a product that goes to our military, we want to get one dollar's worth of value; that we do not want to see the taxpayers of this country or the Department of Defense ripped off because of fraudulent contractors. Unfortunately, fraud within the DOD in terms of private contractors is widespread. During the last number of years, we have seen company after company engaged in fraud, including some of the largest defense contractors in the United States. For example, Lockheed Martin, the largest defense contractor in our country, in 2008 paid $10.5 million to settle charges that it defrauded the government by submitting false invoices on a multibillion-dollar contract connected to the Titan IV space-launch vehicle program. That did not seem to sour the relationship between Lockheed and the DOD, which gave Lockheed $30.2 billion in contracts in fiscal year 2009--more than ever before.…”