Political Quotes

“I thank my very good friend from Baltimore. The basic problem with this bill is that it claims to fix a problem that doesn't exist. The fact is that Federal employees have a delinquency rate that is less than half of what it is for the average American taxpayer. The fact is that there already exist programs to garnish wages and annuity income for delinquent filers. The fact is that agencies can already take disciplinary action against employees who have tax debt, including that of termination. So why are we doing this--to punish people because they chose public service? This bill would have virtually no effect on revenue because there are so few civil servants who are delinquent and, invariably, there is some understandable reason, just as there has been for a number of our colleagues over the years. So it's not about bringing down the debt. This is about threatening Federal workers, singling them out by suggesting that there is some kind of endemic problem when there isn't. You've already docked the Federal workforce with up to 14 unpaid furlough days. You've cut more than $100 billion from their pensions and pay. You've just sequestered $600 million from the IRS. Federal employees work for our constituents, and they work for us. Their jobs are to carry out the laws that we make.…”