Brian Jones: “today is a bittersweet day. I am assuming we are going to vote along with this deal--as I am--to reopen this government…”

“today is a bittersweet day. I am assuming we are going to vote along with this deal--as I am--to reopen this government, to end the 35-day-old hostage crisis, and that truly is the best way to describe it. It is a bittersweet day. It is sweet because our dedicated and committed Federal workers and contractors will be going back to work. It is bitter because, as I think everyone in this body who has spoken today has said, it should never have happened. I believe we have an obligation to those folks to do a better job, to make it even sweeter. Last week, Congress passed the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, which would require that all impacted Federal employees receive compensation for wages lost during the government shutdown--35 days' worth of government wages paid back. While that is an important step, the shutdown has forced many of our Federal workers to incur additional costs associated with loans, late bill payments, and other effects of their missing paychecks--paychecks they depended on for their daily living. That is why today, along with Senators Baldwin, Cardin, Hirono, Van Hollen, Kaine, Klobuchar, Shaheen, Warner, and Wyden, I have introduced the Back Pay Fairness Act. If the Federal Government can charge you interest for being late on your taxes, then we should be paying interest to those employees from whom we have borrowed hard-earned dollars over the last 35 days. That is only fair.…”