On the recordOctober 7, 2013
I would say to the Senator, we have had this effort on behalf of Republicans to kind of pick and choose which parts of the government they are going to reopen. As I noted here on the floor in objecting to one of these piecemeal requests, that exact program my colleague referred to, the senior nutrition program which provides meals to very low-income and often very frail seniors who are getting them either at a senior center or delivered to them through the Meals On Wheels Program, was not initially one of the programs that Republicans chose to reopen. That is why we object to this piecemeal approach. It is bad policy to allow for a wing of this House or the other House to pick and choose which people they help, leaving on the outside, as the Senator mentioned, some who are very deserving, such as very frail and often very hungry senior citizens.
