Political Quotes

“lack of experience in times of decision can easily lead to mistakes. I would imagine that the largest number of employees most Members of Congress have ever employed is their staff here in Washington and back in their districts. As employers, Members of Congress are called on to make hiring, firing and fringe benefit decisions for their staffs. They are involved in hiring, firing, evaluating, and eliminating weak or unsatisfactory employees. These decisions can be made without government advice or instructional guidelines. Now, let us just imagine that we federalize all congressional employees. They would immediately gain all the benefits of civil service, which would then require us to hire, pay, and advance employees according to government regulations; and by the way, we could not fire them without a major just-cause hearing, which we would probably lose. Everything would have to be done according to prescribed rules. In other words, we would no longer control the operation of our offices, good or bad. In the case of a Member, we are talking about 15 or 20 employees; but suppose we are talking about Federal aviation safety. We are talking about 31,000 employees who deem their jobs by government hiring and would not have to be efficient, polite or qualified. Under the control of the FAA, the Justice Department or whatever agency, can we imagine how long it would take to get such an operation started? Probably a year or two.”