Political Quotes

“I want to add my remarks now for the third time about this shutdown. I want to say this is not the way we ought to be running our government, and enough ought to be enough. For example, as you know, the Secretary of Defense has figured out a way he can bring back most of the furloughed civilian employees--there may be a quarter of them who are still on furlough but most of them--by a law that passed here that saw most unintended consequences. But there was a little part of the law where he was able to bring them back for the national security and defense of this country. But there are still gaping holes. For example, although the active- duty National Guard is not furloughed, a lot of the civilian force and the Reserve force of the Guard is furloughed. I just talked to an F-22 pilot of the Virginia National Guard. He is a long-time fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force, flew F-15s, now F-22s. He has transitioned to the National Guard, went to a unit that has the F-22s, which is the Virginia National Guard. All of those Reserve National Guard pilots are still coming in and flying, because we still have to protect the air defense of this country. They are flying, but they are not getting paid. Some of their technicians are there, still supporting the maintenance of the aircraft. Some of them are not getting paid. All of the ancillary support staff is on furlough.…”