Barbara Boxer: “we now find ourselves, amazingly, in day 14 of a government shutdown--a shutdown that was brought to us by the…”

“we now find ourselves, amazingly, in day 14 of a government shutdown--a shutdown that was brought to us by the Republicans in the House. They are sitting on a bill we sent them to open the government and they refuse to take it up. My colleague, the Senator from Connecticut, served over there and I served over there, and we always had an opportunity to use the rules in some way to get a vote on a bill that was passed by the Senate. But the House, not wanting to have such a vote, has made it pretty much impossible for our colleagues over there, Democrats and moderate Republicans, to actually vote to keep this government open. I listened very carefully to Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell, and I have hopes, as I expressed them yesterday, that we will be able to reach an agreement both on the shutdown and on the debt ceiling. But the fact we are struggling, the fact that people all over the world are looking at us as if we are some kind of dysfunctional country, the fact that we have about 1 million Federal employees not getting their checks, not knowing where the next meal is going to come from, the fact we have more than 2 million workers who work for private-sector contractors who don't know when or how they are going to get paid, is something we should all take note of, and we should listen to those who say this is ridiculous. This is self-inflicted. You know, it reminds me of getting up and walking out of your house on a beautiful day.…”