Antonio Delgado: “Today, I rise to lay bare the calamity that is the shutdown. From phones ringing off the hook, to folks I talked to at…”

“Today, I rise to lay bare the calamity that is the shutdown. From phones ringing off the hook, to folks I talked to at my townhall meeting on Monday, we have heard from far too many of our fellow citizens struggling because of government inaction. Take the Coast Guard, who I met with in Saugerties last Friday. They are providing an invaluable service to our community up and down the Hudson River, not only search and rescue, but ice cutting, which is critical to our local economy. They are out there working in the freezing cold and not being paid. This is the first time in history U.S. Armed Forces servicemembers are not being paid during a lapse in government funding. I repeat: Because of the shutdown, members of the U.S. military are working without pay. Government dysfunction of any kind is not good for the well-being of our democratic order. We are now approaching levels of dysfunction that ought not be tolerable for anyone who cares to preserve the dignity of our citizenry. We must open the government now. ____________________”