Government Shutdown

Floor Speech

Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I want to apologize to the people of southern Ohio in Pike County at the uranium enrichment facility for not being able to be with them today. We did not anticipate that our schedule would be completely disrupted by the shenanigans here due to the GOP shutdown of our departments of government, which is so unnecessary and so absolutely discourteous to the people of this country.

Initially, when this happened, the calls that came into our office were calls of dismay and shock and upset about the inability of this Congress to reach agreement because of a very reckless faction on that other--majority's side of the aisle.

The calls have changed. Now we're getting calls from people who've gone to apply for Social Security benefits and there's nobody there to take their application. Now we're getting calls from veterans who are returning from theater and there is nobody there to process their benefit claims.

We have over 800,000 people furloughed from the Federal Government. Guess what? One of my communities had sent officers for training at one of the FBI academies, and they're riding back home right now because that training was not available.

Madam Speaker, our responsibility is to provide a stable government that gives confidence to the people of this country, advances economic growth, and meets our responsibilities. All Republicans have to do is send a clean continuing resolution to the floor and this could end.

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