End This Government Shutdown

Floor Speech

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Mr. BROWN of Maryland. Madam Speaker, I rise to demand, insist, and beseech President Trump to end this shutdown now and open the Federal Government.

I represent the fifth largest number of Federal Government employees. Every day I see, I hear, and I feel the pain and suffering of the Federal Government employees and contractors in my neighborhoods and my communities. One out of every ten residents in my Maryland district live in a household headed by a Federal Government employee or contractor.

This Monday at a community event supporting our Federal employees, I met a woman with her 2-month-old infant child. She is an essential employee at the Food and Drug Administration. She needs to be and wants to be on the job, but she simply can't. She can't because she can't afford to pay for childcare for her infant daughter.

She is having difficulty paying for groceries, providing lunch money for her two elementary school-aged boys, and is on the verge of not being able to pay either her rent or her car note.

She was sobbing uncontrollably. She was weeping painfully, and pleading for you, Mr. President, to open the government, to let her work with dignity, to support her children, and to do her job.

President Trump, end this shutdown now.

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