Political Quotes

“I deeply appreciate that Senator Johnson has updated his proposal to pay all Federal employees during the shutdown, to include furloughed workers as well as DC employees. I appreciate all his efforts. I have worked on a number of bills with the Senator from Wisconsin. We would like to continue to work on this bill as well as we go forward. But, unfortunately, I still have some concerns about the way that the bill has been drafted so far. Those are things that I think we can work out and want to work out. I am concerned that Senator Johnson's bill still leaves too much discretion up to President Trump. There is too much wiggle room for the administration to basically pick and choose which Federal employees are paid and when. I am also deeply concerned that this would allow the administration to actually transfer this money to other purposes that are unintended by Congress, which, unfortunately, we have seen happen repeatedly in this administration. I believe there are ways that we can put in guardrails. There are ways we can get to that, but we are just not there yet.”