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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Cory Bythrow, Communications Director
Phone: (202) 216-4458
Washington, D.C. – In response to Senator Kelly Ayotte’s (R-NH) proposal to offset sequestration by cutting federal pay and benefits, National Federation of Federal Employees National President William R. Dougan issued the following statement:
“Here we go again. Rather than proposing a serious solution to sequestration, Senator Ayotte and her GOP colleagues have chosen to dust off well-worn attacks on federal employees that do nothing to fix the problem. Federal employees have already endured over two years of frozen pay and an increase in retirement contributions that will save the government $103 billion over the next decade. When is enough, enough?
Serious problems call for serious solutions, and the Senator’s proposal falls well short of that measure. The Federal Employee Retirement System is fully funded and federal salaries have shrunken faster than any time in recent memory. What good will it do to punish them even more? Congress cannot keep coming to back to the federal employee well every time they fail to do their jobs. The well is dry.
We send our elected officials to Washington to govern – not to grandstand. The American people aren’t asking for Congress to cut the pay and benefits of doctors and nurses caring for our veterans; they’re not asking for Congress to deprive the Defense civilians supporting our armed forces overseas. So why are they doing exactly that? When convenient politics trump good policy, it’s the American people that lose.”
Draft of Ayotte Proposal: https://www.nffe.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/63438
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Established in 1917, the National Federation of Federal Employees is the oldest union representing civil service federal employees. NFFE represents approximately 110,000 federal employees in nearly 40 separate departments and agencies government-wide. NFFE is affiliated with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO. For more information, go to www.nffe.org.