Political Quotes

“The gentleman from Georgia has given me a lot to think about here. The very first thing that I need to clear up is that 85 percent of the Federal workforce does not live in the national capital region. It is true that the local delegations from Maryland and Virginia and the District of Columbia are sensitive to these continuing assaults on the Federal workforce because we have so many workers who live here, but, again, 85 percent of the workforce lives all over the country. I just learned that there are 100,000 civilian Federal workers in Georgia who also were affected by this government shutdown and lockout of the Federal workers, and I am sure the distinguished gentleman from Georgia heard the same kinds of complaints from his constituents that I heard from mine about not being able to balance their checkbooks, not being able to pay the mortgage or pay the rent because of what took place with the shutdown. The President froze Federal worker pay without any hearings. The President froze Federal worker pay without any markups, and he did it without consulting any of us. That is something that he did. Now, of course, we know that the 115th Congress, the last Congress, became famous--or perhaps I should say infamous--for being the most closed Congress in U.S. history, bringing us the most number of closed rules on the floor, shutting down debate, bringing us so many bills without hearings or markup.…”