Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maine for laying out what we are seeing in terms of the potential impact of those automatic cuts. The comments and the statistics the Senator from Maine had about China and what they are going to be able to do with the money we are paying is really eye-opening and scary. The Senator from Maine spoke about some of the impacts we are beginning to see at the ports of naval shipyards. As the Senator pointed out, it is something very important to both Maine and New Hampshire. It employs about 4,000 workers, almost evenly split between our two States. As a result of the sequester, starting March 1, one of their major projects, the repair of the USS Miami, which was damaged in a fire, is going to be halted immediately. Just stopped--16 days from now. The Navy is going to cut over 1,100 temporary civilian workers, mostly from shipyards such as Portsmouth. The needed maintenance and military construction will be postponed indefinitely. It is not just about those jobs at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard or at the shipyards across the country, but that has a ripple effect across our economy, and it affects the grocery stores and the restaurants and all of the small contractors and small businesses doing work at those shipyards. There will be ramifications for our national defense across the services.…”