Political Quotes

“Madam President, this morning our Democratic leader, Senator Reid, and the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, came to the floor and talked about sequestration. Sequestration had an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 74 to 26. What it said was if Congress, on a bipartisan basis, could not reach an agreement on budget reduction, then automatic spending cuts would go into place. Unfortunately, we did not reach that agreement. The spending cuts, known as sequestration, went into place, and for the last month or so there has been speculation as to whether anybody would notice. People are starting to notice because across this country changes are taking place. For example, the Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to cut about 5 percent from their operating budget, such as salaries for employees. Because it is being done in a 6-month period, it turns out to be a 10-percent cut. What that means, for example, is one of the largest groups of employees in the FAA, the air traffic controllers, is going to go without pay 1 day out of every 10 working days. So with fewer air traffic controllers on the job and fewer people able to direct flights, we have noticed this week that flights are starting to slow down across the country. The FAA estimates that some 6,800 flights a day will be delayed. We have already started feeling that because air traffic controllers are being laid off due to the sequestration plan.…”