Political Quotes

“I thank my friend from Maryland. The distinguished chairman of this committee says that we're entitled to our opinions, but not our own facts while he calls upon our friend from Florida, a former member of our committee, who cherry-picks from the Simpson-Bowles committee, the same committee that said we need a $4 trillion hit on the debt over the next 10 years and it has to be a balance between revenue and spending cuts. My friend from Florida and my friend from California fail to cite that fact. That's a fact. The chairman just put up a sign talking about the exit rate in the Federal workforce. What he doesn't tell you is that 47 percent of the existing Federal workforce is eligible for retirement over this next decade because of the baby boom demographic. How will we replace them, especially the higher-skilled set? My friend from California, like me, came from the private sector before he came here. He was more successful than I. Very successful. I applaud him for that. But I would hope that in that success we don't lose sight of that GS-3 making $27,000 a year serving our veterans at a veterans hospital. It's easy when we don't suffer low wages to perhaps lose perspective about the real need, even in our Federal workforce. And at the higher end, the more we disparage our Federal workforce, the more we make it less attractive. The more we treat them like a piggy bank, the less attractive that service will be.…”