Political Quotes

“I rise to deliver a status report on what the government shutdown has meant to Virginia this week. I gave one last week, and I am back on the floor to share some additional news. I associate myself with the comments of the Senator from Florida. I will talk about some similar effects. These effects are felt everywhere. It is not just furloughed employees; it is contractors, it is local communities and nonprofits, and it is the housing market. Let me talk a bit about Virginia. Some of the pages might have been on the floor last week when I talked about a tiny community in Virginia, Chincoteague, which is a barrier island off the eastern shore of Virginia. It is not the place you might think of when you think about where Federal shutdown effects would be felt in a very specific way. But Chincoteague's economy is oriented around tourism. There is a national seashore and national wildlife refuge there, adjacent to Chincoteague Island, and so these few thousand people over the years have built up an economy that is hotels, motels, restaurants, grocery stores, drive-ins, and other shops for visitors. The fall is a very busy time. The island gets about 1.5 million visitors a year, and they are coming to the National Wildlife Refuge and the National Seashore. On October 1, when government closed down the seashore and wildlife refuge closed down, the visitors have stopped coming.…”