Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bipartisan legislation, compensating those Federal transportation employees who were unfairly furloughed on March 1 and 2 because of a lapse in the Highway Trust Fund. I also want to thank my good friend, the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Mr. Oberstar, and the ranking member, Mr. Mica from Florida, for their great leadership and for their sensitivity. I want to thank Mr. Coble from North Carolina for his support on this on a bipartisan basis. Their leadership is critical to resolving this problem. As the chairman has indicated, H.R. 4786 is a simple, commonsense bill. It would compensate the 1,922 Department of Transportation employees who were forced out of their jobs for 2 days because of political gamesmanship on the other side of the Capitol. These employees were spread across four agencies at the DOT: the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Research and Innovative Technology Administration. These employees were furloughed through no fault of their own. They became unwitting victims of an arcane practice in the upper Chamber that allows one Member's objection, irrespective of merit, to grind to a halt the work of the American people.…”