[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 176 (Thursday, October 23, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7726-S7727]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Government Funding

  Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, it is day 23 of the Schumer shutdown, 
making this the second longest shutdown in modern history. While 
Senator Schumer says ``every day gets better'' for Democrats, the stunt 
is taking a real toll on Americans. Closing the government may be a 
game for Washington politicians, but it is not fun for the folks in 
Iowa who work hard and expect Congress to do the same.
  A social service provider in Sioux City is facing challenges 
providing shelter for the homeless because the Social Security 
Administration is closed.
  The wife of a civilian employee at the Rock Island Arsenal worries 
that if he doesn't get paid, the family may have to dip into their 
daughter's college funds to make ends meet.
  Another frustrated constituent in Council Bluffs says:

       We have families here living paycheck to paycheck. They 
     cannot afford food, much less healthcare.

  An employee of the Farm Service Agency in Taylor County, which is a

[[Page S7727]]

neighboring county to my county, Montgomery, in rural southwest Iowa, 
says the shutdown is putting a strain on beginning farmers as well as 
the elderly producers in her community.
  And the closure of USDA service centers is financially impacting 
farmers, which will have ripple effects on everyone for months to come. 
Thousands of families in Iowa are already facing the real possibility 
of not being able to put food on the table.
  Recipients of SNAP will not receive benefits next month, and WIC--
Women, Infants, and Children--support for mothers and babies will also 
run out very soon.
  And Iowans aren't alone in this.
  If Democrats do not allow the government to reopen, half of our 
States will run out of money to provide SNAP benefits in November. That 
means millions of children across the country will have food taken away 
from them by the Schumer shutdown. This is a particularly cruel way to 
make a political point, especially at Thanksgiving time.
  So most folks here in this body really understand that there are a 
lot of families that mean a lot to me, not only my families in Iowa but 
then also all of our military families across the United States.
  So my daughter and my son-in-law serve on Active-Duty Army. My 
daughter and I talk just about every day, either by FaceTime or by 
phone, and the shutdown is really impacting her younger soldiers. So 
every day my daughter and I go through those discussions of where will 
the soldiers find food. Her discussion with me today centered around a 
talk she had with their military chaplain yesterday. She was typing up 
a letter so that her soldiers could receive gift cards before 
Thanksgiving from the chaplain's funds. But unfortunately, the chaplain 
said: I don't even know that we will have funds so that we can give the 
gift cards for the families because of the shutdown.
  One of the military units has actually started its own internal food 
bank so that soldiers can go to that food bank and get food for their 
families. Anyone that has served in the military or knows someone that 
serves in the military understands that already our military men and 
women, many of them qualify for SNAP even though they are employed by 
the military.
  These are families that are currently serving every single day with 
the inability to get paid. Now, thankfully, the President was able to 
scratch together dollars from the Department of Defense to pay them 
their first check, but this is a long-term problem we are facing now. 
And the President won't be able to keep doing that.
  So we have all of our Federal employees, our military men and women 
that are not getting paid. They can't literally put food on the table. 
One of my daughter's soldiers has had to drop out of college. This NCO 
works full-time during the day and tries to do better by going to 
college at night. And she can't afford to pay the tuition now that is 
required, and there are no appropriated funds to move forward with her 
college. And so she had to pull her enrollment yesterday.
  So we are impacting families in all of our home States. We are 
impacting the men and women that are defending our Nation. This 
standoff is a fight for survival. But what I am doing here, I am 
fighting for the folks who are continuing to work hard every single day 
without a paycheck or going without the help they need just simply to 
get by. But the Democrats are fighting for their own political 
survival.
  We witnessed here on this very floor earlier today the majority of 
Democrats vote no on paying these essential workers in the Federal 
Government. Air traffic controllers, our military men and women, the 
Capitol policemen that protect this complex, the staff that we see here 
sitting today. They voted no. One Democrat Senator candidly confided to 
The Hill newspaper that if Democrats vote to reopen the government, 
``people are going to get hammered'' by their liberal base.
  Another admits there are enough Democrats who would vote to reopen 
the government ``if people were not terrified of getting the 
guillotine.''
  Apparently, the socialist uprising within the Democrat party is 
turning into a modern-day French revolution, folks.
  And playing the role of Marie Antoinette proclaiming, ``Let them eat 
cake,'' is Senator Schumer.
  The truth is, Democrats are literally--I mean literally--taking food 
out of the mouths of babes to save themselves from their own unhinged 
voters, instead of bending to the loudmouthed, liberal lunatics and 
socialist sociopaths who make up their base. Democrats should listen to 
their colleague Senator Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
  Senator Fetterman called the shutdown ``bad political theater,'' 
adding that ``there are no winners here. It's not getting better every 
day here. People are going to start to get really hungry.''
  He is absolutely right, folks, and the Democrats know it is causing 
pain. In fact, that is the whole point of this exercise. Congresswoman 
Katherine Clark, the second in line, the second in line in the House 
Democratic leadership, said the quiet part out loud, stating: 
``Families are going to suffer because of the shutdown.''
  She calls that suffering ``leverage.'' Leverage. The American people 
and their suffering babies are leverage. Using the suffering of the 
very people we were elected to serve as political leverage is just 
plain sick.
  Perhaps Republicans need to start using our own leverage: the Senate 
schedule. If Chuck Schumer cancels Thanksgiving for millions of 
families across America who can't feed their children, the holidays 
should be canceled for the Senate as well.
  We should all be prepared to stay here until we reopen the government 
so no child will go to bed hungry because of Schumer's shutdown 
shenanigans.
  This is a serious job, folks. We need to take it seriously. We need 
to act seriously. And we need to ensure the shutdown ends.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

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