On October 4, 2013 Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland asked for and was granted permission to address the United States House of Representatives for a few minutes regarding the government shutdown. During which time she lamented the delay in getting federal workers back to work. What she said next was absolutely shocking – she then indicated that there are 1 million workers, men and women out of work right now or furloughed because of the government shutdown.
“Mr. Speaker, we are in day four of the Republican shutdown, an irresponsible and manufactured crisis designed to promote ideology at the expense of the American people.”
“Let’s be clear about why House Republicans have so knowingly, carelessly, and recklessly shut down our government. We have heard it on this floor today, Mr. Speaker. It is because they continue to be obsessed with eliminating the Affordable Care Act, the law of the land that is being implemented right now. It has become apparent that they are willing to sacrifice the basic functions of the U.S. Government just to prove that point. Again, ideology and politics over people”, she said.
“Right now there are nearly 1 million men and women who work for the Federal Government, good people, my neighbors and family, who signed up to do a job in the service of their Nation, and today they are not at work. They have had to either take a furlough, now missing four days of work, some of whom were already furloughed earlier this summer with the sequester. That means they are laid off, and they are not working because their work isn’t essential. They are not getting paid”, said Rep. Donna Edwards (source: Congressional Record http://thomas.loc.gov).