Political Quotes

“I want to join with most of my colleagues who have talked about the urgency of us getting the government open. It is causing great harm to our country. Make no mistake about it, it is hurting our economy. I could talk about my own State of Maryland. Our Governor has estimated that we are losing $15 million every day. So every day is precious. I could talk about over 100,000 Federal workers in Maryland who are furloughed out of the 800,000 nationally, having a huge impact on our economy. This morning Senator Boxer held a news briefing where we talked about the impact on the Environmental Protection Agency where 93 percent of its employees have been furloughed. We can talk about the direct impact of those employees not being there. There was a representative from the Ding Darling Refuge in Florida saying not only did it hurt the local economy directly, but she talked about one of the contract services that provided the touring service to the refuge had to lay off 20-some employees. There are private sector jobs that are directly being lost as a result of this furlough. It is going to be very difficult to get back that loss in our economy the longer the government shutdown lasts. It is wasteful to the taxpayer. The last shutdown cost the taxpayers $2 billion. Here we talk about conservatives who want to do something about the national debt and they are wasting taxpayer dollars by keeping government closed. Yes, it is hurting our Federal workforce.…”