Jerry Moran: “I can understand why all the Members of this body would like to go on recess. It has been along, frustrating year.…”

“I can understand why all the Members of this body would like to go on recess. It has been along, frustrating year. Virtually nothing has been accomplished, with all the rhetoric and all, lots of attention. But we ought not go home until we do our job. The fact is that while Federal employees are no longer held hostage, they are still going to be held under house arrest. They will be paid, they will have their own personal needs taken care of, but they are locked in their offices. They cannot perform their work, because the money necessary to perform the work of the Federal Government is not provided for in this legislation. So we have not done our job. That was our job, to provide the money, in addition to authorizing the programs, and we have not done our job. Until we do, we have no business going home. The last time that the Republican majority overrode the will of the Democratic minority and vetoed to go home for the holidays, we created a situation where we will now, as a result of the last bill that was just passed, pay $1.75 billion to Federal employees for not performing any work. They did not want that. They wanted to be doing their job. But $1.75 billion will be paid out to civil servants who are miserable, who are frustrated, who want to serve the public, who chose a career in civil service, and now we think we can buy them off, essentially bribe them apparently to keep quiet. We will give you pay, but just go sit in your office.”