Ben Cardin: “The Senator is absolutely right about the private contractor issue. When you look at 800,000 Federal workers who have…”

“The Senator is absolutely right about the private contractor issue. When you look at 800,000 Federal workers who have been furloughed, that does not include the private contractors, which are clearly going to be an additional hundreds of thousands who are not working today, yes, it is a huge drain on our economy, and there is no reason for this. For all those reasons, we say very clearly on day 14, day 14 of this shutdown, let's open the government, let's pay our bills, and, yes, let's develop a sensible way to negotiate our budget. Let's not try to threaten the American people and then try to pass an extreme agenda as a result of that. Through the Chair, I thank Senator Boxer.”