[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 146 (Tuesday, October 15, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H6602]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  IMPACT OF SHUTDOWN ON EVERYDAY LIVES

  (Mrs. DAVIS of California asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute.)
  Mrs. DAVIS of California. Mr. Speaker, it pains me to see the 
shutdown's impact on everyday lives. While ordering coffee the other 
day, I asked Diona, the hardworking woman behind the counter, how she 
was doing that day. She confided that she had been up all night taking 
care of her 3-year-old son, who was suffering from stomach pains. She 
was exhausted. She wanted to buy the Lactaid milk that settles her 
boy's stomach, but because of the shutdown, her WIC office was not 
open. Her WIC card was out of money, and she was a long way from 
payday.
  There are probably tens of thousands of Dionas out there--women 
working hard and worried about their kids and not sure how they will 
make ends meet. The media may be focusing on the rancor, the talking 
points of politics, but this shutdown is really about a little boy with 
stomach pains and a mother who cannot afford to give him relief. The 
Women, Infants, and Children program helps low-income women buy formula 
and other healthy foods, and it is one of our most successful nutrition 
programs. It is just one of the shutdown's many casualties.
  Let us end this shutdown right now. Let us vote on a clean bill to 
fund the whole government. Let us restore vital problems like WIC, and 
let us stop this lunacy and get back to work for the American people.

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