Hastings on ‘National Day of Protest’ by Federal Employees
Submitted by Lale Mamaux
Washington, D.C. — Recently, Congressman Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL) made the following statement in support of the National Day of Protest, during which federal employees will hold 100 rallies nationwide against sequestration cuts. The mass demonstration is organized by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), in cooperation with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO), Americans for Tax Fairness, and the Alliance for Retired Americans:
“I stand with federal employees all across the country today in calling for the repeal of the across-the-board sequestration cuts and a balanced compromise to our budgetary problems. It is unfortunate that Congress’ inability to find a reasonable alternative to these cuts has resulted in federal employees facing continued bulling from Republicans in the name of fiscal responsibility.
“As a result of the automatic cuts that took effect on March 1, our government is required to arbitrarily cut $85 billion in spending this year. Sequestration means furloughs. It means closed offices. It means that the government will no longer be able to provide the level of services that millions of Americans rely on every single day.”
“After two years of pay freezes for federal employees and a new proposal to freeze pay for an additional year, sequestration will place even more burden on federal workers. Repeated attempts to solve our budgetary problems on the backs of middle class and working poor Americans are misguided and downright unfair. Federal employees are teachers, they are law enforcement officers, they are janitors, and they are public health workers. They are the people we all rely on to keep our country moving.”
“Sequestration was designed to be a bad idea from the very beginning. Any policy that results in the loss of 750,000 jobs, as the sequester is expected to do, is not a policy focused on job-creation: it’s a policy focused on job-destruction.”
Congressman Alcee L. Hastings serves as Senior Member of the House Rules Committee, Ranking Democratic Member of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, and Co-Chairman of the Florida Delegation.
