[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15486]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          PROVIDING RELIEF FOR AMERICANS AFFECTED BY SHUTDOWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Illinois (Mrs. Bustos) for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. BUSTOS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to once again speak out about 
the human consequences and the reckless and irresponsible government 
shutdown. Today it is day 9 into this needless swirl of frustration and 
madness.
  Yesterday I spent time on the telephone talking with a woman whom I 
am here to represent. She lives in a small town called Roseville, 
Illinois. It is in the southern part of my congressional district. Her 
name is Sherri Leath.
  Sherri is a decades-long employee of the U.S. Department of 
Agriculture, and she serves as a food inspector. She spent the first 4 
years of her employment in a slaughterhouse, a beef slaughterhouse. The 
last 6 years, she is in the inspection area of a poultry and a pork 
processing plant. This is not a glamorous job, she is the first to 
admit that, but she works very hard every day, and she takes great 
pride in the fact that she is making sure that our food is safe and 
wholesome.
  She has four children and six grandchildren, and she says she keeps 
them in mind and she keeps all the children in mind throughout this 
country as she is inspecting in these plants and makes sure, again, 
that this meat goes out safe and wholesome.
  So today she will drive. She has a very long commute. She will spend 
most of that time in a cooler that is at most 45 degrees. And I would 
call someone like Sherri Leath an unsung hero, because without people 
like Sherri, who, again, are not receiving their pay right now, our 
food supply would be in jeopardy.
  So she is going into work every day, not taking home a paycheck, and 
she is worried at a deep level about her family's future. She has a 
husband named Thomas, who is a school bus driver and brings home $800 a 
month. This is not enough for Sherri and Thomas Leath to pay their 
bills.
  So they have already discussed what this government shutdown means to 
their family. Step one for them, if the paycheck doesn't come, is they 
will tap into their reserves, into their savings. Step two, if it leads 
to that, they will have to go into further credit card debt. This is 
not what we should be doing to people like Sherri and Thomas Leath. 
This is not what we should be doing to the hardworking Federal 
employees who want nothing more than to do a good job, go to work, and 
receive fair pay. But this is the way it has been for 9 days now.
  We heard Congressman Steny Hoyer speak half an hour ago now, talking 
about that we have an answer to this right now. We have enough 
Republican votes and we have enough Democratic votes today, within the 
hour, as he explained it, to get the government up and running again. 
We could immediately--immediately, today--provide relief for people 
like Sherri and Thomas Leath by reopening the government right here and 
right now. We have a bipartisan path to do that.
  I would say let's do it. Let's get at it today and put these good, 
hardworking people back to work and receiving fair pay.

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