Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 22, 2007)

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Ms. NORTON. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

I thank her for her excellent work on her maiden voyage as chair.

I have come to say a few words that I think need saying about the performance of GAO with respect to the grand experiment that our committee allowed on pay for performance. We allowed it. We have not tried to interfere with it. But the actions taken by the Comptroller General where you would at least have expected it has produced nothing short of a revolution within, of all places, the GAO workforce.

They were chosen for this grand experiment because they were a fairly upscale part of the Federal workforce. And what have we got? How would you feel if you had worked at or above performance, and yet you were among 300 employees of, what is it, 2 million Federal employees who did not receive the across-the-board pay increase that everybody else receives? Well, some of you might have sued or filed a claim with the Personnel Appeals Board within the GAO. And those employees, all 12 of them, have received their COLA, have been promoted, and have had their retirement fixed.

But there are 300 employees from 2006, 130 from 2007 who have been punished as to their pensions and pay because the Comptroller did not keep his promise with the Congress, which was that nobody's across-the-board pay would be affected. In fact, what he did was to insert a market-based study without informing the subcommittee, an unvalidated study, and now he has a whole racial claim on top of it because the African Americans have been disproportionately affected by his action.

If the Comptroller wanted some help, he could have gone to the OPM. Instead, he used a market-based study from a consultant. If he wanted to know how to deal with unionization which is now upon him, he could have gone to the OPM. He could have gone to the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Instead, he is spending taxpayer funds in order to try to beat a union within the Federal sector, the first time ever. If we allow taxpayer funds to be used that way, then it seems to me we ought to be called to account.

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