Government Funding

Floor Speech

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Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my Democratic colleagues in sharing stories of what we are hearing from our constituents who are being impacted by this government shutdown.

I want to take a minute to thank my friend and colleague from Colorado for his thoughtful and comprehensive and passionate remarks about where we are and why. This is a needless and terrible exercise in politics, and we need to reopen the government.

This senseless shutdown has been dragging on now for weeks, affecting vital government services and leaving many Federal workers without pay. With every day that passes without a resolution, hard-working people are dealing with greater uncertainty, and many are facing tough choices in order to protect their families and the way of life they have worked so hard to build. Like many of my colleagues, I have heard from a number of people throughout my State who have been affected by this shutdown.

On Friday, I visited two nonprofits in New Hampshire, the Nashua Soup Kitchen and the Community Action Partnership--most of us know it as CAP of Strafford County--which provides vulnerable people with shelter, food, and support. They are now in danger of being unable to provide services that are a critical part of our safety net. They also fear an increase in demand for those services because unpaid Federal workers will be turning to them for help.

Federal employees and others affected by the shutdown in New Hampshire have also written to my office to describe the hardships they are facing and to urge us to reopen the government. One of those Granite Staters has been an air traffic controller for close to 19 years. Sadly, on Christmas Eve, her mother passed away, leaving her with a terrible loss but also with the stress and expenses of a funeral, all while having to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. On top of that, now she has not received a paycheck for that work.

She wrote:

The government shutdown has been the last thing on my mind. But now the realization of not being able to pay my mortgage, credit cards from Christmas-time, and now this funeral is too much to bear.

She put it simply, saying:

My colleagues and I deserve better.

I also heard from a Granite Stater who works for the IRS. He wrote to me saying:

The prospect of not having a paycheck for an extended time is causing sleepless nights, and I am recovering from an extended bout of pneumonia that ended up putting me in the hospital right before Christmas. . . . My wife is worried about the bills for that. Last night, I worked pushing out the car payments. Today I applied for unemployment for the first time in 25 years, and talked to my mortgage company.

He continues:

All this was under control a month ago, but now has me worried, and is costing me charges and interest.

He also detailed his concerns about a coworker who is terrified of losing her home if she is not able to pay her mortgage and of another who is waiting to address a health issue until she has a paycheck again. He said of him and his fellow Federal workers:

We are hardworking, dedicated employees. Our jobs involve long hours, nights away from home, and risks to our health and safety. . . . All I want is to do my job and be paid fairly for it.

Finally, I heard from a Granite Stater whose husband is in the Coast Guard and recently relocated to New Hampshire. She said:

To say this shutdown is impacting us is an understatement.

She wrote that she and her husband recently relocated to New Hampshire and spent every last penny purchasing a home in the State where they first met.

She said:

We knew it was going to be tight with our two paychecks, but we would have enough to make ends meet. . . . That all changed after Christmas when we were informed that our President was prepared to shut down the government over a wall.

Since then, she and her husband have watched, hoped, and prayed that funding would come because now they fear they are going to have to call family members to beg and to borrow money to pay their mortgage and not go in default.

As bad as the direct impact of this situation is on Federal workers and on some of our most vulnerable and on people and small businesses who rely on government services, the shutdown also has ripple effects on other people and businesses across our State.

We must do better. The President's politically motivated crisis is devastating for too many hard-working families in New Hampshire and across the country. They deserve better than being used as pawns for a campaign slogan created by President Trump.

It is time for these games to stop, for the President's shutdown to end, and for our government to reopen. We need a vote on the floor of the Senate on the bipartisan bills that we already passed that would reopen this government with a veto-proof majority.

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