Political Quotes

“Let me recount a bit of the history of this matter. S. 1535, the Federal Work Force Restructuring Act, was first introduced on October 7 last year. On October 19, the Governmental Affairs Committee, which I chair, held a hearing on S. 1535. We marked it up on November 9. And on February 4, 1994, the House passed its version, H.R. 3345, and that bill was sent to the Senate. The Senate then passed the substitute amendment to 3345 on February 11 and sent the bill back to the House. And so now we have the House version sent back to us again. This has been legislative ping-pong if I have ever seen it. But regardless of how many times we go back and forth, I think the game has gone on long enough. The administration has stated repeatedly it desperately needs this Federal Work Force Restructuring Act so that Federal agencies can begin to downsize the work force by encouraging employees to resign or retire from Federal service. Agencies can downsize without resorting to reductions in force, to RIF's. And as private industry learned, unlike RIF's, buyouts also can streamline a work force without sacrificing morale or diversity. We have had experience with that in the military over in the Pentagon in reductions in force. In addition, buyouts save agencies money because they cost less than layoffs. The longer we wait to pass this bill the slimmer the opportunities become for agencies to use buyouts to down size in the way that we want them to down size.”