William H. Swanson
Analyst · Royal
I think right now, the mid and lower tiers are facing some pressure. I think some companies are having to decide what they're going to do if they can continue on the path they're on, which if they decide to do something different, will it involve M&A, and I think some are going to have to do it. I think from our standpoint, Dave said it best, I mean, we've got a balance sheet that's -- I like to say as pristine with a lot of firepower. So if there's opportunities for us to add to our portfolio that make sense, not just to buy something for revenue's sake, that never works, but where it fits in, especially in where we see future growth, then that would be the case. But I don't expect the company to be doing anything totally different from what we've done in the past. One of the things we tried to be -- somebody mentioned back to the 10 programs, 10 or 11 years ago, we tried to be transparent in what we do, and I don't expect that to change at all. Since you asked me to reflect, one thing that I would say that I am concerned about as we go through this budget process, we seem to be protecting personnel and readiness, which is okay. Those can be bought back very quickly, and I'm going to be working hard to make sure that on the R&D side that we don't take a lot of cuts in the budget there because, being an engineer, I know how long it takes for R&D to come to fruition. And we're always a country that has invested in our capability, in war-fighting capability. I know Raytheon, even in the tough times when we had $13 billion in debt, we still invested, and that's paying off in some of our wins as we look today, and we'll continue to invest as a company. But I think as a nation, as we look at the -- our investments, we've got to make sure that R&D is not sacrificed because you can't buy back that time that you lose.