Last week, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson announced legislation, which according to this Huffington Post story, will "reduce Congress's pay by the greatest percentage of any federal worker furloughed as a result of the sequester." He's calling it the Congressional Overspending Pay Accountability Act; This morning in Tampa, Congresswoman Kathy Castor supported the idea.
"It's not right to be furloughing others in the federal government without asking members of Congress (to do the same)," she told CL after leaving a news conference in front of Tampa General Hospital.
Castor said Washington shouldn't have shut down when the sequester kicked in last Friday. She added that the immediate $85 billion hit to nearly all government agencies (except for entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare) came at the "wrong place in the wrong time."
Castor suggested that Congress balance the cuts in certain areas like farm subsidies. However Congressional Republicans maintain that they offered President Obama the chance last week to restructure the cuts any way he wanted, but he wasn't interested.
"Instead of directing his cabinet secretaries to trim waste in their departments, he's going to go after first responders. And teachers. And almost any other sympathetic constituency you can think of," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week.