Political Quotes

“for several years now I have regularly come to this floor to publicly acknowledge the contributions made by our great Federal employees. This is a tradition I inherited from one of our former colleagues, Senator Ted Kaufman of Delaware. Senator Kaufman, who had been a longtime staffer himself before he served as a Senator, would come to this floor on a regular basis to acknowledge and celebrate the tireless work and occasional heroics performed by many of our Federal employees. When Senator Kaufmann left this body, I gladly picked up that mantle and since then have come to the floor to draw attention to the extraordinary contributions of many of our Federal workers. Over the past few years, this recognition has included a Social Security executive who eliminated a claims backlog to more quickly meet the urgent needs of thousands of Social Security recipients with grave terminal illnesses. We have also celebrated the work of a Department of Homeland Security official who saved taxpayers $750 million by streamlining her agency's procurement processes, and we proudly highlighted the work of a group of engineers at NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia, who, in 2010, designed a capsule that proved to be crucial in saving the lives of 33 Chilean miners who were trapped underground. Too often, our Federal workers are disrespected and demeaned by those who would attempt to use them as scapegoats for all that is allegedly wrong here in Washington.…”