Eleanor Holmes Norton: “Snow is keeping Federal workers at home today, and Congress will keep up to a million at home with the sequester cuts in…”

“Snow is keeping Federal workers at home today, and Congress will keep up to a million at home with the sequester cuts in today's CR. No emergency like snow or even the deficit will be responsible. The responsibility lies with the House majority, which has abdicated its responsibility to govern. The CR on the floor today embeds cuts that might be tolerated if spread intelligently and selectively over time. But even if the deficit demanded cutting, for example, the Women, Infants, and Children program, there could be no justification for doing it in only 6 months, guaranteeing that over 600,000 low-income women and our most vulnerable children will lose basic nutrition assistance. Dumb cuts are bad; cruel cuts are much worse. ____________________”