The Quote/Unquote Archive
December 31
"The most important thing is to restore the faith of the American people in the U.S. Congress and the faith of the American people that the American government works."
-Incoming House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., on his priorities.
December 30
"We're going to show you the money."
-Defense Secretary William Cohen to troops in the Persian Gulf on proposals for a 4.4 percent military pay raise next year.
December 29
"The millennium bug will not delay the payment of Social Security checks by a single day."
-President Clinton, announcing that the Social Security Administration has readicated the year 2000 bug from its computer systems.
December 28
"A pain in the neck, very difficult to handle."
-President Nixon's description of women in government, according to recently released White House tapes.
December 23
"If we took the same approach to Christmas songs that we take to the language of federal rules and regulations, instead of 'Silent Night,' we'd be singing about 'noise-mitigated post-daylight time intervals.'"
-Vice President Al Gore, announcing his latest plain language award.
December 22
"We shoot all prisoners here. There's no such thing as a Geneva Convention on Capitol Hill."
-Rep. Mike Parker, R-Miss., on the current political climate in Congress.
December 21
"There's a ho, ho, whole lot of mail and there's still time for us to get it to everyone's home for Christmas."
-"St." Nicholas Barranca, vice president for operations planning at the Postal Service.
December 17
"Veterans preference in the federal sector had no teeth. Now we're starting to grow some molars."
-Phil Budahn, a spokesman for the American Legion, on a new veterans preference law.
December 16
"I like our chances much better than the opposing team's."
-Army chief of staff Gen. Dennis Reimer on readiness concerns.
December 15
"We need to manage the department better. We need to make it very clear that DOE headquarters [is] running the show."
-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson on centralizing control over DOE's national laboratories.
December 14
"The joke around our unit is that if they keep asking us to do more with less, eventually we'll be able to do everything with nothing."
-Air Force Capt. Christopher DeColli.
December 11
"Send a signal out there to those soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines that we really understand the sacrifice in their service, and we appreciate that."
-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dennis Reimer on his proposal to increase military pay.
December 10
"One of the things I will miss least is walking past all of you to get to the men's room."
-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., to a cluster of reporters outside his office.
December 9
"It used to be called smoke and mirrors. Now it's called emergency spending."
-Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fla., arguing that the budget surplus has not been earmarked exclusively for the use of Social Security.
December 8
"The private-sector health care contractors that are responsible for fighting waste, fraud and abuse too often are not living up to their responsibilities. We recently learned that one-fourth of those contractors have never reported a single case of fraud."
-President Clinton on Medicare fraud.
December 7
"Downsize excess workforce. Cut unneeded infrastructure. Cut headquarters bureaucracy, adopt the best practices in the industry, go paperless wherever possible, and shed non-core businesses . . . . And that, simply put, is what we are doing in the Department of Defense today."
-Defense Secretary William Cohen.
December 4
"We younger members don't want to become Washington elitists to sashay our royal heinies around the big city and have this fawning lobbyist community following us around like we're some generals on a military base."
-Rep. Jack Kingston, arguing against a five-day Washington work week for members of Congress.
December 2
"Because a President is not a king, he or she must abide by the same laws as the rest of us."
-Barbara Battalino, a doctor at the Department of Veterans Affairs who pleaded guilty to lying in a civil suit about whether she had a sexual encounter with a patient, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.
December 1
"The lesson of the past week is that the market will take care of consumers better and faster than government ever can."
-From newspaper ads taken out by Microsoft in the wake of the America Online-Netscape merger last week.
November 30
"The thing that I am really thankful for in this Thanksgiving season is that the founding fathers gave us a system of government that is damn near inoperable."
-Columnist Robert Novak on CNN's "Crossfire."
November 24
"HCFA has as much chance of making the deadline as the [Washington] Redskins have of going to the Super Bowl."
-A congressional staffer interviewed by Federal Computer Week on the progress of the Health Care Financing Administration on solving the year 2000 problem.
November 23
"Members of Congress are hard-working people. It is not unreasonable that they should be entitled to a pay raise."
-House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston, announcing he would support a salary hike for Members of Congress next year.
November 20
"The idea of a federally paid sex policeman spending millions of dollars to trap an unfaithful spouse . . . would have been unthinkable prior to the Starr investigation."
-Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.
November 19
"We are the federal government's 'change' agency."
-U.S. Mint Director Philip N. Diehl, making a pun about the reinvention-minded Mint.
November 18
"In this day and age, I don't trust anybody."
-Linda Tripp to Monica Lewinsky, as Tripp secretly recorded their conversation.
November 17
"When we originally came up with the system in 1986, we thought it would provide incentives to keep people in the service past 20 [years]. We're finding it has the opposite effect."
-Defense Secretary William Cohen on the military retirement system.
November 16
"It is things like this that don't make you want to re-enlist."
-A 20-year-old airman on an Air Force policy discouraging tattoos and body piercing.
November 13
"There are different rules for the military than there are for civilians. Those rules make it very clear that contemptuous statements about civilian leaders are wrong."
-Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon on servicemembers' criticism of President Clinton.
November 12
"Ask any CEO if you can run an effective institution when your employees are leaving their jobs every 2.7 years, and the answer is no. Can you create an effective team? No. Can you create an effective institution? No."
-Rick Shapiro, Congressional Management Foundation executive director, on House staff members' high turnover rate.
November 11
"Only in America could a refugee girl from central Europe become Secretary of State."
-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
November 10
"His mother threw a bucket of water on me and said, 'Get away from my door. My boy is not going in the Marines.' "
-Master Sgt. Preston Ford Jr. on his experience on one recruiting visit. "I convinced her, though," he added.
November 9
"I've been calling it the 'Godzilla effect.' You know in the old movie where they finally drop an atomic bomb on his head-and the SOB gets five times as big because he likes radiation! That's Clinton."
-Columbia University presidential scholar Richard Pious
November 6
"For four years, there has been a rolling referendum on government as it exists, and the government has won it."
-Columnist George Will
November 5
"I don't make my living with my body anymore. I make it with my mind."
--Minnesota governor-elect and former pro wrestler Jesse "The Body" Ventura, saying from now on he wants to be known as "The Mind."
November 4
"They're welcome to it if they're big enough to take it."
--House Majority Leader Dick Armey, when ABC's Ted Koppel asked him if he was concerned that House Republicans angry with the GOP's performance in yesterday's elections might be "out for your head."
November 3
I know the changes through which this agency has gone in the last five years ... I know how, more than any other agency in government, I believe you have embodied the ideal of the reinventing government mission of our administration."
--President Clinton to NASA employees.
November 2
"Who in their right mind would want to be president, except some lunatic who doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, who doesn't have sex?"
--Musician Lou Reed.
October 30
"Other elements of the federal government, including the Department of Defense, have embraced reform. It is time for the foreign affairs community to take this path as well."
--From a Center for Strategic and International Studies report released this week.
October 29
"It looks like Mother Nature wants John Glenn to return to space as much as the rest of us."
--Air Force Capt. Clif Stargardt, a meteorologist.
October 28
"We have the best medical establishment on the face of the earth. It took us 50 years to get it there. And part of that process was federal standards for safe and effective medicines. We've got these brilliant people, a national treasure in the NIH. That's where these questions need to be decided, not in a referendum."
--Drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey, on medical marijuana referendums.
October 27
"Some have said the CIA is exceeding the limits of its charter. But fighting terrorism is our charter. . . . We would be derelict in our duties if we did not do all in our power to fight for peace."
--CIA Director George Tenet, on the CIA's role in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
October 23
"The people who died here were victims of one of the cruelest visitations of evil this nation has ever seen. But we offer them today not pity but honor, for as much as any soldier who ever fought in any war, they paid the price of our freedom."
--Vice President Al Gore at the Oklahoma City Memorial groundbreaking on Sunday.
October 22
"Performance measurement is not magic; it's a lot of work; not everybody gets it, or wants to get it; it's probably politically impossible to even try in some places; and it's not the answer to every problem facing government everywhere."
--Governing magazine's Jonathan Walters, in his new book, "Measuring Up."
October 21
"Someone once said ... that making legislation is like making sausage. Don't kid yourself. I have made sausage, and I can tell you that what we did this year is significantly more sloppy."
--Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., on this year's appropriations process.
October 20
"Honesty, trustworthiness, high ethical standards, personal accountability, responsibility, respect, values, moral and ethical standards, and the difference between right and wrong."
--Some of the words and phrases missing from President Clinton's National Character Counts Week proclamation that are typically used in the annual announcement, according to the Republican National Committee.
October 19
"The only results that can be absolutely documented from this policy are layoffs."
--Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., on a Defense Department policy of partially subsidizing mergers of major contractors.
October 16
"This is not just a job for the computer geeks, this is a job for the warriors, because they're the ones that are going to be out of business. This is war."
--Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre on the year 2000 computer problem.
October 15
"This is deja vu all over again-and again, and again, and again, and again."
--Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., on the need for passage of a fourth continuing resolution to keep government open while fiscal 1999 budget negotiations drag on.
October 14
"I must be frank with you, it's always going to be difficult to match what's going on in the civilian sector."
--Defense Secretary William Cohen on military pay.
October 13
"We'll stay here as long as it takes and work on the budget."
--House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
October 9
"We're asking organizations who think they do a good job now to put their necks on the line and potentially lose the work they are now doing."
--Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre on the 237,000 jobs DoD is putting up for competition with private firms.
October 7
"Sooner or later, people are going to have to stop huffing and puffing and get practical."
--House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., on stalled 1999 spending bills.
October 6
"We've got a Congress that's in overtime. The last thing they need is to be told that they have more time."
--White House press secretary Joe Lockhart on whether President Clinton would sign further short-term funding measures to keep the government open past the end of this week.
October 5
"We're not as bad off as the Navy."
--A tongue-in-cheek recruitment slogan offered by an Army officer, according to a Wall Street Journal story about the military's manpower shortages.
October 2
"That's admittedly the first compelling argument we've heard."
--White House Press Secretary Michael McCurry, responding to Ross Perot's pledge not to run for President again if President Clinton resigned.
October 1
"Rest assured that we do not believe that shutting down the government is any way to sort through our competing views of budget priorities."
--White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles in a letter to House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
September 30
"Pentagon managers seem clueless. The defense accounting system is upside down."
--Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, on reports of fraud at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.
September 29
"We have got to break out of slowing down and making space as boring as possible, which seems to be one of NASA's major achievements."
--House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
September 28
"If everybody knuckles down and just doesn't pontificate before fundraisers, we'll be in fine shape."
--House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., on the chances of Congress finishing all fiscal 1999 spending bills in a timely fashion.
September 25
"The train wreck is imminent."
--Gen. Thomas Schwartz, head of the Army's Forces Command, on the effect of budget reductions on military readiness.
September 23
"The American army encouraged the free flow of ideas and the entrepreneurial spirit. Coming from a wide variety of sources, ideas generally flowed upward from the men actually engaged in battle."
--Historian Michael Doubler on the operations of Allied forces in Europe during World War II.
September 22
"What we are witnessing here is the assassination of the President without a gun."
--Trial attorney Melanie Lomax on the release of the President's videotaped grand jury testimony.
September 21
"DoD managers believe that contractors low-ball their bids in order to get the work and then increase their prices once the government competition is eliminated."
--Michael Styles, president of the Federal Managers Association, on Pentagon outsourcing efforts.
September 18
"Couldn't we at least see the ink turn from red to black and then watch it dry for a minute or two before we get carried away?"
--President Clinton on the House Republicans' $80 billion tax cut proposal.
September 17
"I've been thinking, if [President Clinton] should leave, I got the second highest number of votes, do I become President?"
--Former Senate Majority Leader and 1996 GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole.
September 16
"The federal government is a large organization that continues to run irrespective of Monica."
--White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry.
September 15
"There was a betrayal here. If just what the President stipulated is true. ... I mean he's commander in chief, for God's sake."
--Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb.
September 14
"I didn't know if this was sort of developing into some kind of a longer-term relationship than what I thought it initially might have been, that maybe he had some regular girlfriend who was furloughed."
--Monica Lewinsky on her relationship with President Clinton, which began during the government shutdown of 1995.
September 11
"I would expect that most agency heads are not exactly overjoyed to see the IG walk through the door with offers of, 'I'm here to help.'
--Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., at a hearing on the state of inspectors general in government.
September 8
"I respectfully suggest that they have responsibilities above your pay grade ... to decide whether to take the nation to war. That's a real tough decision. That's why they get paid the big bucks. That's why they get the limos and you don't."
--Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., to Scott Ritter, who recently resigned as U.N. weapons inspector, about senior American foreign policy officials.
September 4
"Some of you know in your heart of hearts that you won't get there."
--Acting OMB deputy director G. Edward DeSeve to federal chief information officers on their progress in solving the Year 2000 problem.
September 3
"It was not a matter of her bringing him a piece of pizza, catching his eye, he catching her eye, she smiled at him, he smiled at her, and something improper happened and that was the end of it."
--Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, on the relationship between President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
September 2
"Geriatric study, give me a break! If I had been in the Senate for 24 years and had the political clout John Glenn had, I'd probably be bugging NASA to go, too."
--Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden on the reasons for Sen. John Glenn's return to space.
September 1
"There are very few votes for increasing enlisted men's and women's pay, so therefore we don't see that."
--Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on how defense appropriations bills have come to be dominated by pork-barrel spending.
August 31
"Gore in '98."
--Message on bumper sticker seen in Washington.
August 27
"There's not any point in his putting the country through an impeachment since he isn't making any pretense of innocence now."
--Then-congressional candidate Bill Clinton, suggesting in August 1974 that President Nixon should resign.
August 26
"There is nothing wrong with the Department of Energy that cannot be fixed by what is right with the Department of Energy. And you, the DOE team, are what is truly right with the Department of Energy."
--New DOE Secretary Bill Richardson in his first address to the department's employees.
August 25
"We shouldn't feel somehow we're Nazis. We're not Nazis. We're saving lives. I'm not running the Baptist Landing Team. This has nothing to do with religion."
--Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Charles Krulak, on the need to reduce alcohol abuse in the corps.
August 24
"We have come, in my judgment, to rely far too heavily on the 'inners and outers' to fill the key positions at or near the top of the public service."
--Former Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker on political appointees.
August 20
"We wanted to keep them even with inflation. They've done a good job."
--A senior Clinton administration official on the President's proposals for pay increases for federal employees in 1999 and 2000.
August 19
"I hope we are not now gonna go on a national crotch patrol and start pressing for prurient details."
--Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., after President Clinton's speech acknowledging he lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
August 18
"It's difficult to use the four or five weeks in September to explain to the public that issues they've never heard of are so seminal that stopping government checks from flowing is a good idea."
--Budget analyst Kim Wallace.
August 17
"An eternal truth of Washington, D.C., is that if you leave a dollar on the table, a dozen hands will reach for it."
--Rep. Rick White, R-Wash.
August 14
"The best health sites are those offered by the federal government. The information is clear and well-organized. There are no sales pitches; the sites link to the most current scientific studies, clinical trials and basic primers."
--Brill's Content's Susan Brink, on health information Web sites.
August 13
"If they've just come into the military, they may believe there isn't any discrimination. But as they get a little further downstream, they'll get a little wiser and understand how discrimination is practiced today versus another time."
--Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Wilma L. Vaught, on women in the military.
August 12
"Republicans can win a shutdown battle. People really will see the president acting out of desperation because of the Lewinsky story."
--Rep. Chris McIntosh, R-Ind.
August 11
"Although terror can turn building to rubble and laughter to tears, it can never--will never--deter America from its purpose and presence around the globe."
--Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
August 10
"They were so incompetent this year, they couldn't even finish a budget. What did they do this year? They renamed an airport and they renamed a lake."
--A White House aide on how the Clinton administration might describe congressional Republicans if they fail to pass appropriations bills on time.
August 7
"The problem with most laws is that they're too short. What's not to understand? If you ask me, this is about the MTV generation and their short attention span."
--Comedian Al Franken, joking at a White House ceremony honoring recipients of Vice President Gore's plain-language awards.
August 6
"Don't ask the people of the United States to rely on politicians to control pollsters to count virtual citizens."
--House Speaker Newt Gingrich on the prospect of using statistical sampling in the 2000 census.
August 5
"That Powerball pales in comparison to my tax-cut plan. Powerball for everybody."
--Rep. John Kasich, R-Ohio, speaking to reporters last week. The 13 Powerball winners are expected to receive about $9 million each after taxes.
August 4
"We want to publicly reaffirm our determination to keep open the vital functions of the federal government at the end of this fiscal year."
--Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., in a letter to President Clinton.
August 3
"It's a real worry. If the issue is salary, we're in a noncompetitive position."
--A senior National Security agency official on the recent brain drain at the agency.
July 31
"This is the most blatant type of interference with an independent agency."
--Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., on GOP efforts to limit the terms of the staff director and general counsel of the Federal Election Commission.
July 30
"What people have said is they really like photos. They like to see soldiers out doing soldierly kinds of things."
--Air Force Capt. Jim Knotts, DoD webmaster, on a new multimedia section on the DefenseLink site.
July 29
"Nobody cares if the Park Service's computers don't come on. But what's going to happen if some don't in DoD? Let's face it, we're going to be the poster child for failure if something happens."
--Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre on the year 2000 computer problem.
July 28
"These men died defending the Capitol of the United States of America, the symbol of freedom across the world."
--Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, on slain Capitol Police officers Jacob J. Chestnut and John Gibson.
July 27
"In reality, we're the biggest slumlords in the country. I have soldiers every day telling me they live in the projects."
--Michael J. Haze, chief of Ft. Carson, Colo.'s military housing division.
July 24
"On many occasions I have seen my colleagues using official time to go shopping, conduct personal business or pursue hobbies such as fishing, golf and record collecting."
--John Reusing, a Social Security Administration claims authorizer and local union vice president.
July 23
"We just spent 30 years trying to get a fiscally responsible budget. I think we ought to stay in surplus for 30 minutes before we start to act irresponsibly again."
--White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles on a GOP proposal for $700 billion in tax cuts over the next decade.
July 22
"This is not reform of government, it's rollback and 'deform' [of government]."
--Joan Claybrook of Public Citizen, a consumer organization, on a regulatory reform initiative that the White House has said it supports.
July 21
"It seems to me the only people in this country who are going to be truly denied their constitutional rights are the women who are serving in our nation's military and our women who happen to be federal employees."
--Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., on a ban of abortion coverage in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
July 20
"If you can't trust the Marine next to you to remain faithful, how can you trust him on the battlefield?"
--Col. Stuart Wagner, a Marine spokesman, on Pentagon policies banning adultery.
July 17
"I get very concerned that we're going to spend it on more government. People ought to get their money back."
--House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, on the burgeoning budget surplus.
July 16
"The best place for a bad idea to be born is in an American university. And the next best place for an idea to survive is in the seat of government, the reason being that bad ideas can only survive when they're insulated from reality."
--House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas.
July 15
"Before I became President, John Koskinen was a personal friend of mine. I doubt if he still is, now that I've got him to do this."
--President Clinton on his point man on the year 2000 computer problem.
July 14
"Public sector management fads--from reinventing to reengineering to downsizing--are not merely unhelpful; they hurt government. Each time some poor public official holds up one of these plans as the magic tonic to save government, people believe. And each time they're disappointed."
--Taegan D. Goddard and Christopher Riback in You Won--Now What?, their new book about political appointees.
July 13
"Turf. It's internal politics. People on the front lines want authority but staff units at headquarters won't give it to them."
--Prof. James Thompson, of the University of Illinois-Chicago, on why some agencies are resisting a Clinton administration directive to empower employees.
July 9
"This kind of living with a sword over the Census Bureau's head ... does not lend well to long-term planning."
--Commerce Secretary William Daley on Congress's threats not to fully fund the 2000 census.
July 8
"I don't have any information to that effect. You might want to call Tom Clancy."
--White House press secretary Mike McCurry, responding to a reporter seeking comment on a report that Iran has spirited four nuclear weapons out of the former Soviet Union.
July 7
"People who deal directly with the public--customer service agents, revenue agents, auditors--all detect a lot more hostility from people. The idea is, it's OK to be hostile to the IRS."
--National Treasury Employees Union President Robert Tobias on how the IRS reform bill pending in the Senate is already affecting agency employees.
July 6
"The screens didn't go blank, the computers didn't crash, and the jet didn't crash."
--Mike Garcia, an engineer at White Sands Missile Range, on a recent successful test of year 2000 conversion at the base.
July 2
"It's like you're handing bullets over to Congress at a sane moment, then watching them go insane and shoot you with them."
--A federal financial manager, commenting on the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act at a recent conference.
July 1
"Sometimes in life, opportunity does knock twice."
--OPM Director Janice Lachance on the open season beginning today that allows longtime federal employees to switch into the Federal Employees Retirement System.
June 30
"The unexpected happens, and when it does, you better be ready for it."
--Margaret Thatcher's law of politics, which she espoused at the recent World Congress on Information Technology.
June 29
"If closing bases didn't save money, then after World War II we should have kept open thousands of bases. This is a very dangerous thing."
--Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on a Senate bill that would limit further base closures.
June 26
"It's about putting the taxpayer first and the IRS second. It's been the other way around for entirely too long."
--House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas, on the IRS reform bill.
June 25
"There is nothing more damaging to the morale of a hard-working, high-performing employee than to receive the same performance rating as some unmotivated schlump who's barely getting by."
--Former OPM official Patrick Korten, arguing against pass/fail appraisal systems.
June 24
"The work that we have done in reinventing government is not sexy, it doesn't rate the headlines every day .... But we've got the smallest government we've had in 35 years, and it's doing more and doing it better than we were doing before in our core important missions."
--President Clinton
June 23
"We can stick our heads in the sand, put on a happy face, and hope nobody will notice the delays and cost overruns. Or we can admit mistakes, move on, and ... get the station built."
--Rep. James Sensenbrenner, D-Wis., on the international space station project.
June 20
"The final exam will be whether the lights and everything go on when we open for business on Jan. 1, 2000."
--Kathleen Adams of the Social Security Administration on kudos SSA has received for its handling of the Y2K problem thus far.
June 19
"I have a vision of us not getting this job done and having the largest problem ever on Times Square. Those gathering on New Year's Eve to watch the ball drop never see it hit the bottom because, at 12:01 a.m., the lights go out and the ball just stops."
--House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, on the year 2000 problem.
June 18
"This is the worst I've seen it in 25 years. We used to have a sense of family around here. We used to have passion. We were reorganized two years ago with a 'leadership team.' That hasn't worked at all."
--An employee at the National Park Service's Denver Service Center, after an announcement that up to half the workers at the center would lose their jobs.
June 17
"The same people who believe government couldn't run a two-car funeral are often the biggest conspiracy buffs. Government, they say, is totally inept--except when it's controlling the world."
--Newsweek's Jonathan Alter.
June 16
"What did the snail say when he went for a ride on the back of a turtle? 'WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!' "
--HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo on the difficulty of gauging the pace of reforms at the department.
June 15
"How many people does it take to run a Cabinet agency? How about two: a Secretary to decide things and an inspector general to tell him later that everything he or she decided was wrong."
--From the newsletter of the National Council of State Housing Agencies.
June 12
"They say neither rain, nor sleet nor dark of night will keep them away. I guess that doesn't include turkeys."
--Jim Palmer, an Albany, N.Y. resident, after mail went undelivered in one of the city's neighborhoods because a wild turkey was harassing a letter carrier.
June 11
"Your computers don't work, your contracting system is a mess, your goals continue to be vague, so your results are fuzzy."
--Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to Agency for International Development Administrator Brian Atwood at a Senate hearing.
June 10
"Simply put, the plans are not being used because they are not yet useful."
--From a letter House Republicans sent to OMB acting director Jacob Lew about agencies' recent strategic and performance plans.
June 9
"Pass legislation postponing the date a couple of years."
--IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti's advice to lawmakers on solving the Year 2000 problem.
June 8
"Every time people say it's dead, it comes back to life again."
--House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, on the budget plan that passed on Friday.
June 5
"With all respect to [Public Buildings Service] managers, real estate expertise does not always translate to important issues like building security and public safety."
--Tom McGoff, a physical security specialist at the Federal Protective Service.
June 4
"Whatever the guide or method he may use, the man who seeks to cheat his government rides eventually to a fall."
--From the IRS's official history of its Criminal Investigation Division.
June 3
"I was just home last week and a sixth grader introduced me as 'an important public serpent.' "
--Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
June 2
"Here's a general guide to plain language: Short is better than long. Active is better than passive. It's O.K. to use pronouns like 'we' and 'you.' "
--Vice President Al Gore on the administration's new plain-language initiative.
June 1
"If you can show in a court of law that a federal bureaucrat is menacing and harassing, you not only get to sue the agency, you get to sue the bureaucrat."
--Rep. John Kasich, R-Ohio, on legislation he has proposed that would allow lawsuits against federal employees.
May 29
"Bureaucracy is the Dracula of institutional behavior, and will rise again and again, requiring everyone in the organization to reflexively pound stakes through its reappearances."
--From General Electric's 1997 annual report.
May 28
"I can't think of a single person I've run into in a government agency who doesn't think they're a hero. But when you ask them about their co-workers and their bosses, that's another story."
--Retired Army Col. Mike Peck, a management consultant.
May 27
"We're trying to improve compensation, but it gets complicated when you start increasing bonuses only for pilots. Pretty soon your support personnel start pointing out that the pilots couldn't fly without their contribution."
--Defense Secretary William Cohen on dealing with the exodus of military pilots.
May 26
"It's harder to be idealistic when you're 59 instead of 25, but when government gets into your blood, it's hard to get it out."
--James J. Wilson, an attorney who has applied to join HUD's new "urban Peace Corps."
May 22
"[There is a] long-standing folklore within the department that individuals who generally challenged the department on issues of health and safety and reliability were somehow kooky, a little crazed."
--Former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary on DOE's attitude toward whistleblowers.
May 21
"Sadly, it appears Washington's labor bosses have tightened their grips on the Clinton administration and even on its drug czar."
--Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas, on the opposition of unions and administration officials to a proposal that would give the Customs commissioner the power to abrogate collective bargaining agreements in certain instances.
May 20
"The clear message you are sending to the federal workforce is that civil servants are Congress' favorite source when it comes to paying for tax breaks and pet programs."
--Federal Managers Association President Michael B. Styles on a House Budget Committee proposal to trim federal spending on health care and retirement programs.
May 19
"As consumers, we can buy almost anything 24 hours a day, seven days a week--shop, bank, whatever, and the list grows every day. But we still have to go to government, where government is, during its business hours. My question is why?"
--George C. Newstrom, EDS government services group vice president.
May 18
"We cannot have more African American generals and admirals simply by wishing it were so."
--Defense Secretary William Cohen in a speech to ROTC cadets at Norfolk State University in Virginia.
May 15
"Would you take a job that reported to three bosses and had no control over budget and staffing?"
--Sam Avrett of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition on the difficulty the National Institutes of Health has had finding a director for its new AIDS Vaccine Research Center.
May 14
"If they can't manage the actions of Smokey the Bear, then how can the Forest Service be expected to manage our 191 million acres of national forests?"
--Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, chairman of the House Resources Committee. Smokey the Bear endorsed the Subaru Forester in a controversial marketing campaign.
May 13
"We are not hiring more people. We are investing in retiring our multibillion-dollar backlog of repair and construction projects."
--Tim Stone of the National Park Service on how the agency is using the increased fees it is now allowed to collect.
May 12
"The idea of selling public service is fundamentally repugnant."
--Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, on the practice of giving plum ambassadorships to top campaign donors.
May 11
"We are not putting an employee representative on the board for political reasons, but to ... have an individual who can sell and who can persuade and can help get these kinds of restructuring decisions implemented."
--Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., on why the Senate voted to give the National Treasury Employees Union a seat on a proposed IRS oversight board.
May 8
"I think you stand out like a flamingo in a barnyard with this administration."
--Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., praising NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin for his management of the space program.
May 7
"The top government experts are not in think tanks or universities or newsrooms. The world's foremost authorities on how to run government are in this room."
--Vice President Al Gore to an assembly of Presidential Rank Award winners.
May 6
"How could it be that the administration's self-appointed Computer-Nerd-in-Chief is nowhere to be seen on what is, indisputably, the biggest information technology challenge of the 20th century?"
--Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy on Vice President Al Gore and the Year 2000 problem.
May 5
"The key will be when members start testing themselves. That's what the American people are waiting to see."
--Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, on legislation he is cosponsoring to require drug testing for members of Congress.
May 4
"The government doesn't exist just to exist, it exists for the people. And if you're satisfying a need, that's good. If you're not, you ought to pack up and leave."
--Outgoing Postmaster General Marvin Runyon, in an interview with Government Executive.
May 1
"My manager, through ambition, incompetence and lack of integrity, gave up a potential tax deficiency which could have brought in as much revenue as $24 million."
--IRS auditor Maureen O'Dwyer at a Senate hearing Thursday.
April 30
"The problem with [Vice President Gore's reinvention] talk is not that it's empty but precisely the opposite. Gore's obsession with reinventing government is immensely useful but needs to be brought back to earth."
--Columnist E.J. Dionne
April 29
"If I had a choice between a submarine and an airport, I'd choose a submarine."
--Former President Jimmy Carter after the Navy christened its newest nuclear powered submarine the USS Jimmy Carter. Washington's National Airport was renamed earlier this year for former President Ronald Reagan.
April 28
"Enough is enough. The American people will say, 'The IRS got its whipping. But now it's time to get about fixing it.' "
--Former IRS commissioner Fred Goldberg on this week's hearings about the IRS.
April 27
"We don't think every contractor we do business with is a crook."
--Maj. Gen. Roy Beauchamp, head of the Army's Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, on how DoD's approach to procurement has changed.
April 24
"If they talk about eliminating the Education Department and other things, they're going to be in trouble. That dog doesn't swim."
--Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., on a House Budget Committee proposal to cut $100 billion in federal spending over five years.
April 23
"We keep peeling deeper and deeper at HUD and sometimes that makes you cry."
--HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo on the department's reinvention efforts.
April 22
"I think we pass too much legislation and don't spend enough time in oversight and investigations as to how these programs and these bills that we've passed ... are actually working."
--Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.
April 21
"If you still have one, please let us know, because we'd like to shut it down."
--OMB Director Franklin Raines to federal executives about large-scale information technology projects.
April 20
"While the era of big government is over, the era of big rewards for bashing big government is also over."
--Vice President Al Gore
April 17
"You know, while my father thought everyone in government was a crook, he never objected to getting his Social Security check."
--Victor H. Reis, assistant secretary for defense programs at the Energy Department.
April 16
"The improved service ... for this filing season ... was not achieved by new technology. It was really achieved by a rather herculean effort by many employees who are operating in spite of the millstone of really obsolete technology."
--IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti.
April 15
"The hours are impossible, the pay is lousy, but you get lots of abuse."
--Former IRS Commissioner Donald Alexander on what it's like to run the agency.
April 14
"The Congressional Budget Office hasn't been right in about a billion years. I mean, come on, that's just a bunch of government estimators."
--House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio.
April 13
"The [federal] mandate has given way to the preemption. Both have the effect of stifling local government and state government."
--Gov. Mike Leavitt, R-Utah.
April 10
"The assumption here seems to be that if we just remove the non-managers, somehow or the other, the SES is going to work better. I don't know that that's true."
--Senior Executives Association president Carol Bonosaro on OPM proposals to overhaul the Senior Executive Service.
April 9
"A couple years ago, somebody actually sent in some gold. ... It was a couple hundred dollars' worth."
--Peter Hollenbach, a spokesman for the Treasury Department's Bureau of the Public Debt, on people who voluntarily send the government contributions to lower the national debt.
April 7
"Something is fundamentally wrong when money is deducted from a woman's paycheck not for taxes, not for health care, not for pensions, but simply because of who they are. This is a gender tax."
--Labor Secretary Alexis Herman
April 6
"There is never a perfect time for a decision like this, but I believe that after five and a half years as a member of the Clinton Cabinet, that the time is now."
--Energy Secretary Federico Pena, announcing his resignation.
April 3
"This is a difficult year when it comes to cutting government."
--House Budget Committee chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, on problems getting agreement within the GOP to trim programs.
April 2
"We are trying to find the balance of meeting these new standards as quickly and as effectively as possible without making every soldier turn in his helmet for a green eyeshade."
--Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon on DoD's difficulty in producing accurate financial statements.
April 1
"The federal government can't pass an audit. We're spending almost $2 trillion a year based on erroneous or non-existent information."
--Senate Governmental Affairs Committee chairman Fred Thompson, R-Tenn.
March 31
"Anyone who is a conservative has a streak of the libertarian in him. But it doesn't make sense to say we're going to get rid of the government. It's not what people want."
--Curt Anderson, Republican political consultant.
March 30
"With my experience as a Western bureaucrat, they viewed me as a possible leader who could lead them into a society in which democratic principles are the natural way to live."
--Former EPA official Valdas Adamkus on how he got elected president of Lithuania.
March 27
"It's got to be 100 times cheaper, 100 times more reliable and 100 times more regular."
--Jack Mansfield, former NASA associate administrator, on what it would take to make civilian space flight commercially feasible.
March 26
"Many government computer applications will grind to a halt, or crash entirely."
--Justice Department officials on what will happen if agencies are required to archive all of their electronic records.
March 25
"We cannot look to the corporate sector for democratic values. I see government employees as an extension of democratic values."
--Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, on his concerns with privatization.
March 24
"I wonder if we should think of this sort of thing in Washington."
--Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., on Russian President Boris Yeltsin's dismissal of his entire Cabinet.
March 23
"We believe it is demeaning to the awards to limit them to the exhibition of competencies that have been the operational buzzwords for only a brief period of time."
--Senior Executives Association President Carol Bonosaro, on why the criteria for the Presidential Rank Awards should not be changed to include areas such as "business acumen" and "effective use of information technology."
March 20
"This court has a duty to send a message to other high government officials that there is a penalty to be paid for making false statements under oath."
--U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth after sentencing former USDA chief of staff Ronald Blackley to 27 months in prison for lying to federal investigators.
March 19
"This job is frustrating enough without having to feel like an idiot because it takes so long to do things."
--Colleen Mathis, an IRS employee in Nashville, Tenn., on the agency's work processes.
March 18
"We don't have any new Washington-based programs of any significance in this budget."
--Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., on the budget plan GOP members of his committee introduced Tuesday.
March 17
"We're not baking a cake here. We're baking cupcakes."
--An Office of Personnel Management spokesperson on the agency's piecemeal approach to personnel reform this year.
March 16
"The Vice President is in a holding room reinventing corned beef and cabbage."
--Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., prior to an appearance by Vice President Gore at the annual St. Patrick's Day breakfast in South Boston.
March 13
"The biggest problem right now is coordinating all the reform legislation we've already passed."
--Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., on efforts to improve government's performance and public image.
March 12
"The business of government is government, not business. We should be doing the things in the government that really have to be done by a government entity, but not the things that really can be done by business."
--Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre
March 11
"There's a core group that's opposed to everything OSHA does, regardless of how we do it."
--Stephen Gaskill, communications director for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, on industry opposition to the Cooperative Compliance Program.
March 10
"Congress does a better job of keeping the secrets entrusted to it than does the executive branch."
--Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb.
March 9
"The only thing the government likes about mediation is it takes a long time."
--Alexander Pines, attorney for a group of black farmers, on USDA efforts to settle their discrimination complaints.
March 5
"Most are grades you would not want to take home to your parents."
--Rep. Stephen Horn, R-Calif., on his ratings of agencies' year 2000 conversion progress.
March 4
"Today the reinventing government effort is the longest running and most successful government reform effort in history."
--Vice President Al Gore
March 3
"Taken to its logical end, the appeals court decision would permit random testing of virtually any federal employee in the Washington area, since almost any such employee may have access to buildings frequented by members of the Cabinet, members of Congress or justices of this court."
--From the appeal by OMB official Arthur Stigile of a court ruling upholding a plan requiring him to take a random drug test.
March 2
"There is going to be some sort of electronic attack in the future, whether it is as dramatic as Pearl Harbor or something else."
--Pentagon official Linton Wells
February 27
"She felt that it would just be more efficient for her to work through e-mail and faxes and deliveries at home."
--Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon on the temporary "flexiplace" work arrangement that Linda Tripp, who secretly taped conversations with Monica Lewinsky about her alleged relationship with the President, has worked out with her bosses at the Defense Department.
February 26
"In effect, you are turning the agency over to the union."
--G. Jerry Shaw of the Senior Executives Association to members of a Senate Committee considering legislation that would give a union representative a seat on a new IRS oversight board.
February 25
"Government is not the dopey, frozen organization that everyone thinks of outside the Beltway."
--Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre
February 24
"It's not a Wizard of Oz-type thing, where there's just someone behind the curtain. I want to hear from everyone and hopefully eventually everyone will buy into it."
--Office of Personnel Management director Janice Lachance on her proposal to set up an OPM "think tank" to study federal pay issues.
February 23
"The supervisors are the lowest level of management--and they have the hardest job."
--Rosemary Martelli of the Social Security Administration's San Jose, Calif., regional office.
February 20
"We will not leave technology to technologists. ... Every manager who expects to flourish at GSA will be on top of technology and will be taught how to use technology to accomplish our business acts."
--General Services Administration chief David Barram.
February 18
"I would tell a city that's negotiating with the Park Service that they have to think about whether 50 years down the road they want the federal government to make all the development and planning decisions in the area."
--Patrick J. Rodgers, an Albuquerque, N.M. attorney.
February 17
"Our titanic ship of state, the USS Bureaucracy, is on a dangerous collision course. If the ship doesn't change direction, it will hit an iceberg. Strangely, that iceberg isn't made of ice. It's a gigantic paper iceberg, frozen hard with regulation and indifference."
--Morley Winograd, director of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government.
February 13
"We've got our black helicopters and our guys in United Nations uniforms out there."
--Patrick Shea, director of the Bureau of Land Management, joking about how conspiracy theorists in the West view his agency.
February 12
"The cruise missiles are the smart weapons."
--Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., on the difference between sending members of Congress and cruise missiles to Iraq, after he was asked if lawmakers might be going to negotiate with Saddam Hussein.
February 11
"That's the question I've been asked by a lot of people, including my wife."
--New IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti on why he took the job.
February 10
"I've worked with this agency for nearly 15 years, and I've seen attempt after attempt to fix things fail."
--Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., on an INS proposal to overhaul the naturalization process.
February 9
"The very same administration which is now trying to portray me as a disgruntled White House staffer . . . [has] consistently given me the highest possible evaluations and awarded me numerous certificates and merit pay increases."
--Pentagon employee and Monica Lewinsky friend Linda Tripp.
February 6
"We will be hearing calls from all corners for the heavy hand of government regulation, for a new 'Internet Commerce Commission.' "
--Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, on what will happen if Microsoft comes to dominate the Internet.
February 5
"Traditionally, Cabinet secretaries like to highlight how big their budget is and how many more people they have. That tradition is over. We helped grow the economy bigger, without growing ourselves."
--Commerce Secretary William Daley on his department's proposed fiscal 1999 budget.
February 4
"I do not see why we should name an airport for the President who fired 11,000 air traffic controllers."
--Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., on a proposal to rename Washington National Airport for former President Ronald Reagan.
February 3
"We're not going to accept it. We're going to take the issue over to the Congress and give them one heck of a fight."
--Bobby Harnage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, on President Clinton's proposal for a 3.1 percent raise for federal employees.
February 2
"During the last two years, we've pretty much whittled things down pretty close to the bone."
--Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of a House appropriations subcommittee, on proposals to rescind fiscal 1998 spending.
January 30
"The executive branch leaks like a sieve."
--CIA Director George Tenet
January 29
"The IRS must shift its focus away from its own internal operations and think about its job from the taxpayers' point of view."
--IRS Commissioner Charles O. Rossotti
January 28
"We have moved past the sterile debate between those who say government is the enemy and those who say government is the answer."
--President Clinton in his State of the Union address.
January 27
"We ought to be behaving like the big purchaser that we are and getting the government the best prices."
--HHS Secretary Donna Shalala on a Clinton Administration proposal to require competitive bidding in the Medicare program.
January 26
"The USDA, as far as the black farmer is concerned, is a cesspool of racism."
--James Dawson, the only black member of the Alabama state Farm Service Agency committee.
January 23
"Welcome to the theater of the absurd."
--White House press secretary Mike McCurry at the opening of a briefing Thursday at which he was grilled about President Clinton's relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinksy.
January 22
"What would really be good for me is to find something that can create a partnership between business and government. That would be along the lines of what I have been doing."
--Outgoing Postmaster General Marvin Runyon on what he'll do next.
January 21
The "administration seems to have many small ideas that, taken together, return to the era of big government."
--House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas.
January 20
"I believe he would be proud to see how much we have done to banish discrimination from our laws. But I believe he would tell us that we still have much to do in banishing discrimination from our hearts."
--Vice President Gore on Dr. Martin Luther King.
January 15
"We want these agencies to do something that will make the American people say 'Wow! That's different.' "
--John Kamensky, deputy director of the National Performance Review, on Vice President Gore's order that "high impact agencies" develop new performance goals.
January 14
"It is time for a sort of budget 'Full Monty.' By that I mean it is time to expose everything in this budget."
--Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. "The Full Monty" is a recent English film in which unemployed workers raise money by working as male strippers.
January 13
"I came to reinvent the Census Bureau. ... Now is the time for someone to come in who has experience taking a large organization through the daily grind."
--Outgoing Census Bureau Director Martha Farnsworth Riche
January 12
"Heaven knows we need a little harmony in the Senate."
--Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., who has recorded a country music CD with three other Senators.
January 9
"I think our concept of defense today is much more terrestrial."
--DoD Spokesman Ken Bacon, on why the Defense Department does not have a program to protect the Earth from asteroids.
January 8
"I think the government's attitude ... is part of where all this comes from in the first place. I think maybe it's time the government be more respectful ... and not with the attitude that we know and you don't, we have the power and you don't."
-- Jury foreman Niki Deutchman, jury foreman in the Terry Nichols trial, on the anti-government feeling behind the Oklahoma City bombing.
January 7
"In a town of politicians who want to be celebrities, Sonny arrived as a celebrity and proved himself a leader."
--House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Rep. Sonny Bono, R-Calif., who died in a ski accident in Nevada on Monday at age 62.
January 6
"I think we ought to talk about modernizing, privatizing, downsizing and prioritizing government so that we can reduce the total [tax] burden on the American people to no more than 25 percent."
--House Speaker Newt Gingrich
January 5
"The idea that we ought to take any of this money and expand government for anything, to have any additional spending beyond the budget agreement, would be a terrible mistake, and I intend to fight it."
--House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, on proposals to increase federal spending this year in anticipation of future budget surpluses.
December 31
"It is not that agencies want to break the law. Rather, it is that there are so many laws that agencies can't tell which ones to obey. It is safe to say that the problem with federal management reform is not too little reform but too much."
--Public administration scholar Paul C. Light.
December 30
"This is the Rolls-Royce of pension plans. You can't get a pension like this in the private sector."
--National Taxpayers Union vice president David Keating on congressional pensions, some of which approach $100,000 per year.
December 29
"This is part of the administration's ongoing effort to turn what had been essentially a 19th century food inspection system into one that's ready for the 21st century."
--A Clinton administration official quoted by the Associated Press on the President's plan to seek a 9 percent increase in spending on food safety.
December 24
"When the Murrah Building was bombed, FBI Director Louis Freeh and I promised to follow every lead and bring those responsible to justice. Today, that promise has been kept."
--Attorney General Janet Reno on Terry Nichols' conviction for conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the Oklahoma City bombing case.
December 23
"The system prevents [federal] land managers from doing their jobs, denies them financial and human resources and forces them to spend time cutting through red tape and an enormous bureaucracy instead of managing the land."
--Bob Powers of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, arguing that limits on logging in national forests are overly restrictive.
December 22
"I'll give five dollars to anyone in the audience who can honestly say you have missed it."
--President Clinton on the cuts his administration has made in the size of government.
December 19
"I am an adjective, not a noun."
--Attorney General Janet Reno, explaining last week at a House hearing why she prefers to be called "Ms. Reno" rather than "General."
December 18
"A greater portion of the gap needs to be made up in 1999, not because of the movement in non-federal pay, but rather because of congressional and presidential action to limit the locality increases called for . . . since 1994. This is a development that should be of great concern to all involved in federal pay decisions."
--From a new Federal Salary Council report on the gap between federal and non-federal pay.
December 17
"Judging grant applications solely on the basis of adherence to the niceties of typography is not what reinventing government is all about."
--David Seldin, an aide to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., on the Education Department's decision to change its policy on grant applications after rejecting a blind applicant's request because it wasn't double-spaced.
December 16
"One child yesterday said that I should name the dog 'Top Secret,' so I could run around the White House saying, 'Top Secret, Top Secret.' "
--President Clinton on the new puppy he has adopted.
December 15
"There will be a slowdown in a lot of things for the President. I think they're going to have difficulty getting judges through. They're going to have difficulty on the appropriations process."
--Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, on what will happen if President Clinton grants Bill Lann Lee a recess appointment to the top civil rights post at the Justice Department.
December 12
"I think that maybe--sorry, guys--but I think it's much easier for women to do that."
--Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, explaining her ability to establish "rapport with my colleagues" and "relationships with ordinary people."
December 11
"I'm not 'dissing' the GPRA process. Frankly, I'm saying, you are finally starting to catch up with us; we're there; we've been doing it."
--Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre on the Defense Department's efforts at results-based management.
December 10
"It is a profoundly stupid and really corrosive thing for Congress to have done to itself."
--Rep. David Skaggs, D-Colo., on the line-item veto.
December 9
"More clearly now than in the past, the Defense Department and Congress face hard choices about what is more important: keeping non-core support functions in government hands, or putting advanced technology in soldiers' hands; protecting an underused facility, or protecting overseas forces; preserving government contracts, or locking in re-enlistment contracts."
--Defense Secretary William Cohen
December 8
"My range went from A to B on the gauntlet scale."
--Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., on his acting career.
December 5
"Anybody who has ever worked in government knows that career civil servants follow the direction of political appointees, because if they don't, they don't get promoted."
--Larry Klayman, head of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, criticizing Commerce Department panels made up of career and political officials who select business leaders to go on trade missions.
December 4
"Get an administration with some guts."
--Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., when asked how the line-item veto could be improved.
December 3
"It's important that the entire U.S. government effectively work to preserve our national security interests. It's not just an issue for Defense."
--National Defense Panel Chairman Philip Odeen
December 2
"That will produce a predictable amount of squawking from the agencies."
--White House press secretary Michael McCurry, commenting on his announcement that OMB had sent President Clinton proposed fiscal 1999 spending caps for agencies.
December 1
"Just as they say that government programs are immortal, so are think tanks and public-interest groups. When their mission goes away, they find new missions."
--Stephen Moore, director of fiscal policy studies at the Cato Institute.
Past Quote/Unquotes:
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January
NEXT STORY: Federal computers to face hack attacks