Political Quotes

“this country has undergone tremendous changes over the last few years as a result of military downsizing and base closures. Making the transition has proved very difficult to communities all across the country and today, in an effort to ease that transition, I am introducing legislation with original cosponsors Senators Coats, Lugar, Hutchinson, and McConnell directed at specific problems we've seen with privatization of these bases. I know many of my colleagues are aware of the job loss that results from downsizing. That is because many jobs have become obsolete or redundant. But, there's also a whole other category of affected employees, whose skills and expertise are still needed by the military in the same roles, but in new privatized facilities. Under the 1995 Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC), these employees are still eligible to work for the Federal Government and receive a Federal pension. However, this would defeat one of our major goals in privatization-- to save the taxpayer money. The idea under privatization is to continue utilizing these workers' much-needed skills, but in the private sector, at a reduced cost to the taxpayer. Yet, by sending these workers out into the private sector, we are asking a huge portion of them to give up their retirement benefits. These workers are in a catch-22.…”