Political Quotes

“On July 1, the front page of The Washington Post had a headline which showed in many respects just, again, the disconnect between this town and the rest of the country. It said: ``They said the sequester would be scary. Mostly they were wrong.'' I would like those reporters to have joined me on July 3, 2 days later, when I went to the Groton Navy Base in southeastern Connecticut to talk to over 100 civilian DOD employees who were on the verge of being furloughed because of sequestration. Again, under sequester, 650,000 civilian DOD employees, for 1 day a week for the next 11 weeks, will be furloughed, or lose 20 percent of their paycheck, despite the fact that they contribute enormous value to the military readiness of this country. Again, at that meeting, where I was joined by Captain Carl Lahti, who is the commander of the sub base, he talked about the fact that among the furloughed employees are crane operators, folks who install torpedoes, Tomahawk missiles, all the supplies to make sure that our attack sub fleet is ready to go at any given time. Again, losing them 1 day a week just pushes back the readiness of the submarine fleet. I talked to Adam Puccino, who is the head of the Metal Trades Council and represents the maintenance crews on the base to make sure that the tip of the spear of America's Navy is ready to go. Again, losing those folks 1 day a week is going to slow down and retard the ability of that fleet to be ready.…”