Political Quotes

“I rise to express my deep concerns with the payroll tax alternative that our colleagues have proposed. Their alternative would be paid for by extending the current pay freeze for Federal employees through 2015 and requiring each agency to cut its workforce by 10 percent. I strongly oppose putting the entire cost on the backs of two million middle class Federal employees, who already have contributed to deficit reduction through a 2-year pay freeze. These men and women are working harder than ever with tighter budgets and, in many agencies, continued staffing shortages. If adopted, these provisions would hamper investments in national defense, homeland security, veterans' services, food safety inspection, and other critical areas for a short-sighted approach that does little to address our current fiscal challenges and does nothing to create jobs. In the end, these policies would cost the government more, by harming the Federal Government's ability to recruit and retain highly-skilled workers and increasing our reliance on high- cost contractors. Arbitrary caps on Federal employees often lead to waste, fraud, and abuse as contracting expands without investment in oversight. Already, over the past decade, Federal contracts have nearly doubled in size, but the acquisition workforce charged with overseeing our Federal contracts has remained constant. We should not be adding to this trend, but working to reverse it.…”