Political Quotes

“I would like to thank the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey, for yielding me the time. The highest honor and privilege of my professional career so far has, with all due respect, not been in this Chamber but was the 8 years that I served as Indiana's secretary of State. I have run a government agency. We run it on 1987 dollars, unadjusted for inflation. The secretary of State's office in Indiana right now spends no more money than it did in 1987--again, unadjusted for inflation. We had no more employees than we did in 1982. From that experience, I can say the worst thing you can do for government efficiency, if you really are interested in serving the people, is to have your employees distracted by anything else but the people's business. The scope of this problem at the Federal level I find absolutely stunning. According to the Office of Policy Management, in 2008 the Federal workers were paid 2.9 million hours spent on union business. Let me say that again. We pay, as American taxpayers, for 2.9 million hours of union negotiations. That means we have spent $120 million for people to negotiate for a different or better job, not for them to even do their actual job. Certain union representatives at the FAA are allowed to spend 80 hours each pay period doing union business, not the work of the people of this Nation. Last time I checked, that's 2-weeks' worth of work the entire pay period.…”