Political Quotes

“Mr. President, my good friend from Pennsylvania, Senator Toomey, and I had an amendment that we put forth several weeks ago back in the time when we did not know for sure whether sequestration was going to become a reality. We have some comments to make about that. I will be yielding to the Senator from Pennsylvania in a moment, but I first want to make an observation here, that anytime a bureaucracy is forced to cut, they will find the one thing the people of America want most and that is what they will cut. There is no better example of this than the FAA. I went around with them for quite some time on the pilots bill of rights last summer. We were able to get something done. But I know they are a very powerful agency. There is no question about that. To give you an example of that, the FAA began furloughing traffic controllers--and others too--on April 21. This is what is interesting, and you have to pay attention to this. The cuts that were going to come to the FAA through sequestration amounted to 5 percent of the FAA's budget to bring it down to 2010 levels. The FAA operations budget has grown by 109 percent since 1996. That has more than doubled since 1996. On April 22, the first day after furlough took effect, over 400 flights were cancelled and nearly 7,000 flights were delayed.…”