[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 1 (Wednesday, January 3, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H53]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1815
              THE HUMAN EFFECTS OF THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

  (Mr. EDWARDS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, there is nothing wrong with Congress having 
an honest debate on a 7-year budget. That is democracy. There is 
something terribly wrong when the Speaker of this House today 
prohibited democracy from working in preventing us from being able to 
vote cleanly, and clearly, and quickly to reopen the Government.
  Let me tell you some of the victims of that decision by the Speaker 
and House Republicans. This letter from my district, a former welfare 
recipient, now a Federal employee, basically had to cancel his child's 
9-year-old birthday because he could not get paid. This letter from my 
district is a Government employee who cannot buy insulin for his 
diabetes problem. This letter is from a woman in my district, a Federal 
employee whose husband lost his private-sector job recently and she 
cannot get paid as a VA employee. They are not sure if they will keep 
the mortgage on their home. This is a letter from a woman in my 
district, a hardworking Federal employee who had to borrow money from 
her mother in order to pay rent. Finally, this, along with many other 
letters, is a letter from someone who needed a bone marrow transplant 
operation, cannot get it done because of Speaker Gingrich and the House 
Republicans' decision today. That is wrong.

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