he s one of the most part of one of the most controversial companies in our nation s history over the last 12 years. blackwater, credited with playing a positive role in the war on terror and one of the most polarizing companies in the world. now its founder and former ceo wants to set the record straight and he has done just that with this book civilian warrior, details, the rise and fall of blackwater, eric prince in our living room. thanks so much. thanks for having me. in the beginning, black water was painted as a positive, a private firm helping out our sitting army. what happened? you know, we started in the training business and we trained people after columbine. we trained thousands of navy you re a navy seal? i was. we trained thousands of sailors after the cole was blown up and said yes when the government called after 9-11. we provided security, logistics, aviation support. we delivered millions of pounds of supplies to troops, even in combat in afghanistan.
sir, again, i, our i guess you can say yes or no. our accounting office does a routine audit and review of every bill that comes in before they do it. i do not personally. i want to be very accurate, but i don t personally pay contracts, negotiate contracts, by law and by precedent. that is really illegal for someone who isn t a warranted contract officer to engage in the debate or the discussion around federal contracts. how much has the administration spent on the exchanges in total, not just healthcare.gov but all of the exchanges? i m sure how difficult is that figure to give me? if you can t give it to me i can get it to you in writing very quickly. madam secretary, i would like to talk, i don t know how much timofei got left. i like to talk about a couple of businesses in my district struggling how to move forward. one is manufacturing. one is in the pet boarding and training business.
one is a manufacturer, one is in the pet boarding and training business, one has 85 employees, the other 56. here are quotes from some of their recent letters. the situation we re in is we would have to pay $170,000 in penalties under obama care. this is another example of the government picking the winners and losers. we re the losers. no way i can be competitive if i have to raise my prices to cover $170,000. here are my options. do not pay the penalty, raise my prices and go out of business, 85 people lose their jobs. layoff 35 employees who don t have to pay the penalty and move more production to this country, reduce 35 jobs. here is a quote from the other. since high labored low mar begin business cannot afford to pay for insurance for our employees, we re faced with either closing our business perhaps through bankruptcy so heavy financial obligations would continue whether we operator not. fire enough employees to get under 50 employees, even if we close the location, we cannot
ped boarding and training business and has 85 employees and one has 66. here are quotes. the situation we are in, we would have to pay $170,000 in penalties under obama care. this is picking the winners and losers and we are the losers. no way i can be competitive to cover $170,000. here are my options. do not pay the penalty and raise my prizes and go out of business. lay off 35 employees who don t have to pay the penalty and move more production to this country. reduce 35 jobs. here s a quote from the other. since the high labor and low margin business cannot afford to pay for insurance for our employees, we are faced with closing our business through bankruptcy though there obligations that continue whether we operate it or not. fire enough employees to get under 50, limiting our business and even if we doze, many
they can t take it they can t. what that means the army loses the things they need most, people and training. because the thing in the army called erosion curve and when a soldier comes back from combat, his skills in combat erode quickly so you have to put him back in the training business so he maintains those skills. if he doesn t train and you know, 12 million cut in army training funds. 60% of the army s training budget is gone and within a year, the erosion for those units is in fact catastrophic and if we have to go to war again in a year or two, those soldiers won t be ready and by the way, we have an army or a military that s at war in afghanistan not people remember that. greta: okay. so, i guess the sort of position that against what i see as probably the pentagon a lot of defense contractors and an awful lot of waste there it and i realize that this is more urgent and we can t collect that waste from the defense contractor and double