[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 9, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H301]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         DO THE RIGHT THING NOW

  (Ms. WEXTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. WEXTON. 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.

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