Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I have the greatest respect for the Senator from Hawaii. I know he cares deeply about this issue. But it is simply time for us to reform the Federal workers' compensation program for postal workers and for other Federal workers. For this reason, I oppose his amendment because it does not begin to solve the problems that have been repeatedly documented in the program by the inspectors general at the Postal Service, at the Department of Labor, by GAO, and by the Obama administration, which has called for many of the reforms we have incorporated into this bill. Senator Akaka's amendment takes on only very minor reforms which are already included in the bill. It does not even attempt to constrain the rapidly growing costs of the program, and it truly does nothing to effectively combat the fraud in the program. Let me start with some background to show the growing, the escalating cost of the Federal workers' compensation system. From 1997 to 2009, the program's costs grew by an astonishing $1 billion, as this chart shows. That was a 52-percent increase in program expenditures. It is one of the reasons why President Obama's administration has submitted changes to this program over and over. Our bill, according to the CBO, would reduce the program's outlays for workers' comp by $1.2 billion over the next 10 years. I note the Obama administration supports across-the-board reforms, just as we have put in our bill.…”