Disapproving the President's Proposal to Take An Action Relating to the Application of Certain Sanctions with Respect to the Russian
Floor Speech
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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I come to the floor today with a number of my colleagues on the 26th day of this deeply damaging and completely unnecessary Trump shutdown. We are here today to lift up the voices and stories of the people who are being hurt by President Trump and his Senate Republican allies and to once again call on Republican leaders here in the Senate to finally allow a vote and work with us to end this manufactured crisis. While President Trump is very focused on his political game, actual people, their families, and their communities are paying the price.
People we represent--moms and dads, workers, small business owners, people who did not do anything wrong, who just want to work, do their job, serve their communities--all of them have been pulled into President Trump's chaos and dysfunction, and it needs to end.
I am very proud to kick off another effort here in the Senate by those who want to make sure that President Trump and Senate Republican leaders don't forget whom this is about and understand who is being impacted by their refusal to act.
I want to start with a few from my home State of Washington, where there are nearly 13,000 workers who have been caught up in this Trump shutdown.
Lauren is a furloughed FAA employee who shared her story with me through my website. She told me she supports her family with one income, and now that paycheck has been frozen. She said she has been losing sleep trying to figure out how to cut her own expenses and pay her bills since the Federal Government isn't meeting its obligation to pay her.
I heard from Adam, also from my home State, who is buying his first home with his fiance. What should be a very exciting time is now filled with unnecessary stress because Federal loans through USDA and FHA are held up. As if closing a home isn't stressful enough, now they don't know when or even if a loan is going to come through. As Adam described to me, home buyers are now caught in the middle, and that is just wrong.
One Federal employee I met with while I was home last week is a scientist at one of the impacted Agencies, and he told me about the stress that he and his family have endured since the start of the shutdown, having to cover their childcare expenses and mortgage while he is not being paid--expenses that total up to $1,700 each month. Right now, he said he is able to tap into his family emergency fund to make ends meet, but he doesn't think they can hang on much longer.
I am not the only one, by the way, who is hearing from people in Washington State about how President Trump's unnecessary shutdown is impacting their lives. These stories are everywhere.
Earlier this week, the wife of a furloughed TSA employee with a 6- year-old daughter told the Seattle Times about how the shutdown has thrown her family into an economic tailspin. Their family is currently living off of money she makes from babysitting and with the help from her retired father, who has taken now a minimum-wage job to help with the family's finances. She worries how they are ever going to make it if this shutdown continues.
This is a small number of the countless stories coming out of my State and from around the country about how President Trump's reckless government shutdown is hurting real people. They are people in every one of our States in the country. They are people on every side of the border debate. They are people who heard President Trump say he would be ``proud'' to shut down the government. They are people who simply do not understand why they are being asked to bear the burden, to pay the price because President Trump and Republican leaders here in the Senate have boxed themselves into a political corner.
They are people who are getting angrier and angrier, more and more desperate with every day that goes by, who are going to make their voices heard, and we are going to make their voices heard. We are fighting by their side to end this shutdown. I am going to keep making sure they have a voice in the Senate.
I am proud to be with a number of my Democratic colleagues today. We are going to lift up their stories until President Trump and Republicans here in the Senate agree to end this crisis they started.
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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I respect the rights of the Senator. We have a number of Senators and a limited amount of time. So if he could finish quickly, we would all appreciate it. Thank you.
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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, we have heard from a number of our colleagues today about personal stories that are happening to real live people in their home States--people who have not received a paycheck and are facing fear about what they are going to do in the coming days.
We have a responsibility--and I think I speak on behalf of Republicans and Democrats both here. We need to open government. We have disagreements all the time in Congress over different issues. Certainly, we cannot put these people's lives at risk and leave them as pawns in our States. Open up government, and then have a discussion about the issues we disagree on.
I know the Senator from Minnesota expected to be here, but I also see on the floor the Senator from Georgia, who would like to speak. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Georgia be allowed to speak and the Senator from Minnesota, when she returns.
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