Political Quotes

“I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question to allow us to bring up H.R. 3858, which would freeze salaries for Members of Congress for another year through 2013. I have consistently supported and voted for freezing member salaries, yet I along with 116 other members--in bipartisan fashion--opposed a bill last night that the Republican Leadership mischaracterized as doing just that. In fact, that bill was nothing more than a Trojan Horse to allow House Republicans to once again use federal employees as a punching bag. My Republican colleagues thought they were being clever by pairing a continued freeze on member pay with a continued freeze on federal employees. As one reporter correctly pointed out, it was nothing more than a cynical, political dare from House Republicans so they could run ``gotcha'' ads against those who opposed it. Of course, the Republican leadership conveniently ignores the fact that our dedicated federal employees already have had their pay frozen for two years, contributing $60 billion to our deficit reduction efforts. Just 14 percent of our 2.3 million federal employees live within the National Capital region. The rest provide vital services in communities throughout America every day. They guard our borders, protect the safety of airline travel, fight forest fires, and track down online child predators.…”