On the recordMarch 28, 2012
I want to thank Mr. Van Hollen for his brilliant and balanced work on the budget. Shakespeare's sonnet says, ``Let me count the ways.'' I am finding it difficult to count the reasons to oppose the Republicans' unbalanced, no-growth budget that threatens to send us back into a recession. But when the tightest fist in the Federal Government, the OMB, says that the Republican budget would, and here I'm quoting, make it ``extraordinarily difficult for the Federal Government to do its basic business,'' I listen. The Federal Government, Mr. Chairman, is labor intensive. When the OMB says that there will be 4,500 fewer Federal agents on the border, working criminal cases and performing national security, I listen. When the OMB says we won't be able to meet basic standards for food safety, I am listening. We simply cannot keep freezing pay for Federal employees, which amounts to deep cuts or replace every three with only one employee and expect to continue protecting the American people at the same time. The Republican budget kicks Federal employees while they are down and kicks their vital work right along with them. It guarantees the growth of the unaccountable contractor sector, which remains untouched in the Republican budget. So much for the phantom savings at the expense of Federal employees.
