January 15, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 8 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Page H581]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          OPEN THE GOVERNMENT

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, I can't even account for this 
historic and devastating Trump shutdown.
  When I say I can't account, I can't believe that the government is 
now in the mix of a shutdown that has such far-reaching proportions of 
impact, negative impact: not only my constituents who work for so many 
Federal agencies, from TSOs to Border Patrol, to Customs and Border 
Protection, to air traffic controllers, but those around the Nation--
the two Federal employee family that is now going into their son's 
scholarship fund, the young mother who now needs food assistance, those 
who are on the SNAP program, those who live in public housing, those 
who are disabled.
  Is there any empathy or sympathy in the White House to begin 
intelligent and informed negotiations, allowing us to negotiate border 
security after the fact but open the government now so that people can 
be paid?
  Madam Speaker, people are asking me whether their healthcare coverage 
is going to lapse because they are not being paid. People are asking 
about whether or not the credit scores that are impacted by not being 
able to pay your bills, how they are going to make amends for that; 
about the mortgages or the rent to landlords who are being insensitive.
  Madam Speaker, the bottom line: Open the government, Mr. Trump, for 
the American people.

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