Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, several years ago, I had a conversation with one of my constituents that I think about often.

She told me about when she sent her 5-year-old son off to his first week of kindergarten in the Loudoun County Public Schools. He came home from school one day, and he told her: Mommy, we had an emergency drill today. My place to hide is behind the backpacks.

Like a backpack is going to stop a round from an AR-15.

And she decided right then and there that we need to do better for our kids and that she needed to do something. Her way of doing something was to start the Loudoun chapter of Moms Demand Action.

Now she and millions more like her have sent us here to do something about gun violence.

We may not be able to stop every school shooting, every act of gun violence, but shouldn't we at least try to stop some? Because if we won't do that we shouldn't be here.

Today, for the first time in decades, the United States Congress will vote on meaningful gun violence prevention legislation. We will vote on and pass H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, and I will proudly vote ``yes'' because these checks will save lives.

Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague, Gerry Connolly, for his strong leadership on this issue.

I rise in strong support of H. Res. 790 and in strong support of a long-overdue cost-of-living increase for Federal civil servants.

Many will remember the President's callous executive order of December 30, right in the middle of the shutdown, freezing Federal workers' salaries while hundreds of thousands of them were furloughed or, worse, working without pay.

Federal employees are not the swamp, as some would have you believe. Federal employees are the people who make sure that Social Security checks are mailed on time each month. They are the scientists researching cures for cancer. They are tour guides in our national parks. They are FBI agents investigating criminal activity. They are the air traffic controllers and TSA agents keeping us safe when we fly.

We saw during the shutdown how important every dollar of every paycheck is for Federal employees to pay their bills, to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage, to afford childcare, to pay off their student loans, and, yes, even to feed their families.

It is time to give Federal employees the pay raise and the respect they deserve, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay) for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 79, which is my resolution expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that government shutdowns are detrimental to the Nation and should not occur.

Mr. Speaker, between December 22 and January 25, more than 800,000 Federal workers went without pay because of the Trump shutdown.

Saying that shutdowns harm the American people and the economy should not be controversial. These facts are not up for debate, or at least they shouldn't be. But yesterday, members of the Freedom Caucus basically tried to shut down the House of Representatives because they objected to a sentence in the resolution that said the President shut down the government to achieve a legislative end.

Now, he did. We all saw him say it on television, and we have seen it many, many times since then. But I am a brand-new legislator, and I am all about getting to ``yes'' and finding consensus, so the offending clause has been removed from this resolution and should not be a problem anymore.

For 35 days, our workers were forced to go without a paycheck. That is two pay periods that workers had to make difficult financial decisions for themselves and for their families.

Essential services were halted; national parks were shuttered; and our national security was compromised during this time.

TSA screeners and air traffic controllers were forced to work without pay. FBI offices had to delay indictments against violent criminals.

The CBO estimated the effect of the Trump shutdown to be $11 billion, with more than a quarter of that amount permanently lost.

The shutdown also impacted our Federal Government's ability to recruit and retain career public servants, with many Federal workers reconsidering their career choices after this shutdown irreparably harmed them.

On December 20, the President announced that he would refuse to sign legislation that had been unanimously passed by the Senate just the day before due to his insistence that Congress provide funding to build a wall along the southern border.

This was not a priority before Democrats took over the House of Representatives, but all of a sudden, it was a crisis. This resulted in the longest government shutdown in American history.

Mr. Speaker, my resolution highlights the substantial burdens that were placed on the American people from the President of the United States attempting to use a government shutdown to get a policy win. Nobody wins when the government shuts down.

My district is home to tens of thousands of Federal workers and government contractors, and the impact of the shutdown was felt in my district almost immediately.

I also have heard from people all over the country who were impacted by the shutdown, including an air traffic controller who told me about the stress that going two pay periods without pay added to what is already one of the most stressful jobs in the Nation.

I heard from a family who had to give up their Christmas entirely and who asked their children to hold their money, because they needed to make sure they had the funds to buy food during the prolonged shutdown.

I heard from the CEO of a small business in my district that relies on Federal contracts with the Federal Government who was worried about how he was going to continue to pay his workers when his invoices from the Federal Government were not being paid.

Meanwhile, the guidance from the administration to workers without paychecks was to suggest they take out loans, have a garage sale, babysit, drive for Uber, become a mystery shopper, or ask their landlord for an extension on their rent.

On January 24, the Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, made comments on live news expressing confusion about why Federal employees who have been furloughed or are working without pay had to receive assistance at food banks.

These unreasonable suggestions from the administration and the comments from Secretary Ross showed just how out of touch the administration is when it comes to our Federal workers, many of whom do live paycheck to paycheck.

We have an opportunity to make it clear that shutting down the Government of the United States is not an acceptable strategy to resolve policy differences.

Mr. Speaker, after all they have been through, we owe assurances to the millions of Federal civilian workers, including the hundreds of thousands who were furloughed earlier this month, that Congress will ensure continued, uninterrupted operations of the Federal Government.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support this resolution.

Madam Speaker, my district in Northern Virginia is home to tens of thousands of Federal workers, and even more contractors who work alongside them.

I have heard from hundreds of constituents about how the shutdown has turned their lives upside down, like Teresa, who is a furloughed Federal worker.

She and her husband recently sold their home and signed a contract to purchase another one in my district. The mortgage financing for their purchase was all set and approved before the shutdown. Their closing date is set for next Monday, the 28th, 4 days from now.

But just a couple days ago, they learned that the mortgage company is now denying their mortgage application because she is furloughed. She was told by the lender that they consider her unemployed and too much of a risk to finance.

This is a Federal employee who will receive backpay when this shutdown eventually ends, but that isn't enough for the mortgage company. It isn't enough for any of their other creditors, and now she and her family, instead of celebrating moving into their new home, are essentially homeless, all because of the reckless Trump-McConnell shutdown.

Madam Speaker, today is payday for Federal workers, but instead of receiving a paycheck, many, including thousands of my constituents, will be going without.

I had a visit from a constituent yesterday who is an air traffic controller at Washington Center in Leesburg, Virginia, one of the busiest air traffic control centers in the Nation. She worked 80 hours over the past 2 weeks and received a paycheck for zero dollars. You can't pay your mortgage with zero dollars. You can't buy groceries with zero dollars. You can't pay your medical bills or fill up your gas tank with zero dollars.

Madam Speaker, Federal employees want to go back to work. They believe in their mission and want to provide quality services for the American people. They shouldn't have to sell off their belongings or return their children's Christmas presents just to make ends meet. They shouldn't have to wonder how they are going to survive.

Our national parks are filling up with trash. Many TSA security screeners can't afford to commute to work. The FDA is not inspecting our food supply.

Our hardworking Federal employees are doing their jobs. It is time for President Trump and Senator McConnell to do theirs.

Mr. Speaker, my district lies just outside of Washington, D.C., in northern Virginia, and is home to tens of thousands of Federal workers and contractors. Since I was sworn in on Thursday, I have received hundreds of calls, emails, and social media outreach from my constituents whose lives are upended. I would like to read one of those messages now.

I am a Federal employee who used the last of his

discretionary funds this week to attend his grandfather's

funeral. Now I'm preparing to file for unemployment. My wife

has to try to get a job despite her severe and crippling

disability, and we've had to return some of the Christmas

presents for ourselves, our four-year-old son, and our six-

year-old daughter.

We've always lived paycheck to paycheck because of the high

cost of living in northern Virginia, and we don't have the

option to take out loans because we incurred so much debt

moving to the area and dealing with our family's medical

bills.

Right now I am contacting our utilities and mortgage

company to see if we can push out the deadlines for bills. I

gave up military service to join the civil service and have

been so disheartened to see the lack of respect for our

Federal employees.

Mr. Speaker, we owe our Federal employees better than this. I call on the Senate and the President to do the right thing and end this shutdown now.