Political Quotes

“As I begin, my staff is bringing over to the chairman a copy of something I am going to include in the Record from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Department of Commerce. The chairman may recognize the Department of Commerce is part of the administration and part of government. Their assessment in 2008--and it has only become greater--is that we have as Federal workers against average--this is not against average of job per job but just against the working stiff, whatever they do in the outside world versus the working stiff in government, $29,169.63 of additional wages. What makes the huge difference the American people don't always see is that in the private sector, a typical benefit package is about $9,881. Well, a civilian Federal Government employee has a benefit package on the average worth about $40,784 or $30,900 more. So, Mr. Speaker, we do have the Department of Commerce currently, during the Obama administration, telling us very clearly--not that engineer versus engineer. I appreciate the way you can match up various jobs, but the Federal workforce is a highly skilled and highly paid workforce, and we should understand that if we are going to have telework go greater and greater--and I approve of it doing it--we have two reasons to do it. One is continuity of government, and sometimes continuity of government can cost more. It can be for redundant computers, redundant centers and so on, no question at all.…”