On the recordJune 17, 2010
I do not think anybody is denigrating the quality of Federal employees. To the contrary. We are all Federal employees. We all know Federal employees. We are all friends of Federal employees. And we have a lot of Federal employees who do a great job. All we are simply saying is when you are in a tough economy, everybody ought to look at what they can do to live more within their means. When we are running a $1.5 trillion deficit this year and trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, Lord knows we ought to be looking within to figure out what we can do to try and find some savings that we can use to either pay for the things we need to do or perhaps pay down the Federal debt which, as I said, my amendment does. The amendment would prohibit increases in salaries or bonuses for Federal civilian employees. The changes that are at the desk will allow such increases and bonuses to occur so long as agencies do not exceed their fiscal year 2009 budget for salaries.
