Steny Hoyer: “In fact, for comparable work done in the regions of the country, it is done regionally so it is not over-inflated for…”

“In fact, for comparable work done in the regions of the country, it is done regionally so it is not over-inflated for high cost areas and low cost areas, but by region, our federal employees for comparable work done in the private sector are 20 to 30 percent behind. Now, the reason the salaries sound high is because we have NIH scientists, we have NASA engineers, we have law enforcement officials that are skilled and, for instance, in FBI, college graduates, doing some of the most sophisticated criminal investigations possible and DEA and ATF and other agencies. We have at the IRS highly skilled and paid personnel to carry out very sophisticated financial responsibilities and analysis. So that, yes, by comparison with the overall, they are high. But just as well, Michael Jordan's salary by comparison was high.”