Political Quotes

“I want to compliment him and the ranking member, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dixon], for their yoeman's work on behalf of the District of Columbia in trying to work through what has been a very, very difficult financial crisis. As we look at the situation today and compare it to even a year ago, we have really made progress. That is sometimes lost sight of in light of the headlines that come out every day with the continuing problems that the city has. But if we go back a year, we have reduced the number of employees in the city by several thousand over what it was a year ago, and that is total reduction. That is not just moving them off budget into enterprise funds and the like. We find that there is a certain level of stability now to city spending, and we are trying to bring some accountability to the managers in the city in terms of what they spend with the advent of the Control Board and the CFO, both of which I think are doing yoeman's work, as well. We have brought honest answers to the process, something we have not seen for many years here on Capitol Hill in terms of having some level of confidence in the financial numbers that are offered to the Congress by the District of Columbia.”