Dan Burton: “I had some reservations about this initially because the initial cost is going to be something like $519 million.…”

“I had some reservations about this initially because the initial cost is going to be something like $519 million. Initially there was no guarantee that we were really going to reduce the work force, because even though we were going to let people buy out, we could have in another area of Government hired somebody else to replace them. But my colleagues on both the Democrat and Republican side had a spirit of cooperation on this bill... Because they have agreed to the Penny-Burton amendment which will save for every one employee that buys out there will be a reduction in the Federal work force of one. So what that means over the course of the next few years is there will be thousands and thousands fewer Federal employees which means that the taxpayers over the long haul will save about $20 billion. So this is a step in the right direction as far as reducing the size and cost of the Federal Government. In addition to that, there was some question about somebody taking a buyout and then coming back in a short period of time and going to another job in the Federal Government. We have an amendment which is going to put a 5-year requirement on this that you cannot come back within 5 years without paying back the retirement buyout that you took.”