Frank Lautenberg: “It is so easy, so easy to stand here at $135,000 a year with all kinds of benefits and everything and say, 'I am willing…”

“It is so easy, so easy to stand here at $135,000 a year with all kinds of benefits and everything and say, 'I am willing to sacrifice.' Go down to the factory and talk to somebody who is hanging on to his job by his fingernails, ask the poor fellow who has been downgraded as companies shrink their size. I love these heroics we get in this place, big speeches on lofty pinnacles. Talk to the people who are doing the work every day, bringing home the lunch pail, and see what we have. Sacrifice? I'll tell you how to sacrifice. Cut the benefits here. Cut them now. Stand up and say we will take less for our health insurance and our retirement and everything else. If you want to pull a nice heroic stand--somebody's last stand--stand up here and recommend a cut in benefits instead of talking about, shrieking about, how people have to sacrifice--from this lofty place.”