Political Quotes

“I support the gentleman's amendment. I just want to comment on a couple of aspects of it. I think it is incredibly important that we get more small businesses involved. Sometimes the best technology, the best ideas, that is where they start, and working with the Pentagon bureaucracy can be overwhelming. A large company like Lockheed Martin or Boeing doesn't have a problem, but maybe the best ideas come from some small garage startup. I think making affirmative efforts to make sure we reach out and get those companies involved is something that is very important and something we need to continue to do. Yes, we need to track the success of it. Given the record of some of the programs of record, I personally would hesitate to judge them based on whether or not they made it into a program of record. I know we have done some reforms where it has worked where they don't have to get into a program of record. The Pentagon doesn't have to go through all of the processes that are involved with that. They just are able to say: I like that. We are going to buy it. In fact, that is one of the reforms that the chairman has been a leader on doing is freeing up more opportunity, particularly when you are talking about technology, to simply buy the best product instead of having to do an RFP and a down select and going through a lengthy process. So I agree with the chairman on that.…”