Political Quotes

“I thank my friend from Maine. This subject is so serious and so infuriating because it is absurd. We have shut down our government--we are the only country in the world that does something like this--inflictin harm on our employees, on Americans, and on America. I see we have the gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. Spanberger) in the Chamber. She talked about national security being placed at risk. The fact that we have done this to ourselves is really difficult, and I would say to the President, Madam Speaker, that it is time to reopen this government. We have offered 11 versions of how to reopen the government. But I want to talk about some stories, because the psychological effect that the gentlewoman from Maine talked about really has an impact on these employees. I want to talk about a young man who works for the National Park Service. He is in the natural resource technical division, so what he does is he goes to the national parks and deals with faults and different kinds of geological problems that may exist. They work throughout the year, but particularly at the time when their parks are not very crowded. This is something that is very important. He has worked for the Park Service for 19 years, and then, all of a sudden, he believes that nobody saw this coming, and he is furloughed, with young children. And he described it as this: I don't know when we are going to get back to normal. Everything is on hold. It just sucks. The mental side is crushing.…”