Political Quotes

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me first state and make perfectly clear that I think the emancipation of slaves is a day worth celebrating. I have no argument whatsoever with the fact that we should probably celebrate it better than we have in the past. But there are other ways of celebrating it--a resolution in the Senate creating a national day of celebration without declaring it a national holiday. The effect of declaring it a national holiday is primarily one thing: It gives Federal workers a paid day off. Now, Federal workers are compensated quite well, and I want to quickly go through this again, as we did last week. I have some charts up here. If you take a look at just their wage, Federal workers, on average, make about a little over $94,000 per year. In the private sector, the average wage is $63,000, which is 67 percent of what Federal workers make. If you also include benefits--total compensation--Federal workers make, on average, about $135,000, almost $136,000 per year. In the private sector, it is about $75,000, which is 55 percent of what Federal workers make. So if you strip out only the benefits, which is what we are talking about with holiday pay and paid family leave and other things, Federal workers, on average, get compensated about $41,000 annually, versus the private sector's $12,000, which is only 29 percent of what Federal workers make. What we are talking about is a paid day off.…”