Quote/Unquote
September 30"You will have allied yourself with the IRS' bureaucratic machine and turned your back on the millions of Americans who have been pulled through its gears."
--House Speaker Newt Gingrich to President Clinton on what will happen if he opposes legislation to overhaul the IRS.
September 29
"You have succeeded in getting a degree of cooperation from the Central Intelligence Agency that would make most members of the United States Senate jealous."
--Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., to businessman and Democratic party contributor Roger Tamraz.
September 26
"I don't come here in denial. It distresses me greatly to see the mistakes we have made."
--Acting IRS Commissioner Michael Dolan at the end of three days of Senate Finance Committee hearings into abuses by the agency.
September 25
"We are terrified by what's going on."
--IRS agent Jennifer Long on employee concerns about managers' wrongdoing at the agency.
September 24
"The IRS is an easy target for criticism and a convenient whipping boy. I believe the great majority of the 102,000 employees of the IRS, our neighbors, do their very best."
-- Sen. Richard H. Bryan, D-Nev., at the beginning of Senate Finance Committee hearings on alleged abuses by the IRS.
September 23
"All you hear up there on Capitol Hill is gimme, gimme, gimme. Gimme this, gimme that. Gimme a pay raise, and weaken the House gift ban while you're at it so someone can gimme more gifts."
-- Congressional Accountability Project Director Gary Ruskin.
September 22
"This administration has always been proudly pro-union, pro-worker, pro-strong family, and I guaran-damn-tee you, we always will be."
-- Vice President Al Gore to the AFL-CIO.
September 19
"A leader would drive change and not be driven by change."
--Janice Lachance, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
September 18
"This is an outrageous maneuver by House leadership to allow Congress to give itself a pay increase without letting the public know how they would vote on the issue."
--Rep. Linda Smith, R-Wash., after House leaders won passage of a measure that did not include language denying a cost-of-living increase for members of Congress.
September 17
"At some point we have to decide--are we proud professionals, or are we always going to be cowering and sycophantic?"
--Steven Kelman, former administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, on the mindset of the procurement workforce.
September 16
"I asked President Clinton to withdraw my name . . . so I can go back to New England, where no one has to approach the government on bended knee to ask it to do its duty."
--Former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, announcing that he was giving up his fight to become ambassador to Mexico.
September 15
"EPA's reinvention initiatives have yet to change the basic programs or attitudes of the agency."
--From a National Academy of Public Administration report on the Environmental Protection Agency.
September 12
"You can't get away with saying blacks shouldn't be in the Army. But you can say women shouldn't be in the Army."
--A female soldier quoted in the Army's new report on sexual harassment in the service.
September 11
"I have no doubt that free spenders could conduct a public relations assault on possible [budget] surpluses, making effective and emotional arguments for providing more federal funding for any number of needs."
--Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, arguing for a proposal requiring that unanticipated federal revenues be directed to tax cuts or debt reduction.
September 10
"Light of day is the best disinfectant."
--Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, on cleaning up waste in federal programs.
September 9
"We clearly are not reducing the size of the federal government in this bill when we are increasing agencies that at one point we were proposing to radically transform."
--Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., during House debate on the Labor-HHS spending bill.
September 8
"[People] think you're a second secretary or some other position in some government bureau, but you never get very high, you never get to be the top person. You are always under cover doing a different job, and to others who don't know what you're really doing, it appears you're not terribly successful."
--Former CIA Director Stansfield Turner on life for the agency's covert agents.
September 5
"The final is due on September 30. If they're not done correctly, . . . we'll ask them to repeat the course."
--House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, on the deadline for agency strategic plans under the Government Performance and Results Act.
September 4
"Despite all the rhetoric about its incompetence, the federal government does many things well, and nothing as poorly as the way in which the worst American public schools are run."
--Nicholas Lemann in the September issue of Washington Monthly.
September 3
"Anyone waiting for a regulatory fix might as well be waiting to shake hands with Elvis."
--Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, on the long time federal land agencies take to develop regulations.
September 2
"The number of federal employees continues to fall; consequently, hiring and attrition are low. In addition, should the need arise, the government has many tools, such as recruitment bonuses, retention allowances, and special salary rates, to maintain the high quality work force that serves our nation so very well."
--President Clinton on why he chose to hold next year's federal pay raise to 2.8 percent.
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