Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, this may not be the best way to get at this problem, but this is a problem. There is nothing wrong with competition, but what's happening right now with a lot of DOD contracts is not competition. The DOD has gone in, in a very arbitrary way, picked large contractors from a long ways away, and not even allowed, in many instances, local contractors to compete for that work. This is a very real problem. It's a bipartisan problem. We had a Republican Member testify before the Armed Services Committee about his concerns about this. They are driving work away from local contractors and away from local workers, not allowing them to compete for that work by showing a bias in favor of a large, one-size-fits-all contractor. Not good for the Department of Defense. Also, with all of our bases, the local community is a critical support structure for that base. Once you take that out, once you take local workers, local contractors out of the equation, it makes it that much more difficult to get the local community to give the base the support that it deserves. This is not competition as it's currently constructed. I applaud the gentleman for offering his amendment. I urge support, and I urge that this committee look more closely at this issue.”