On day 27 of the federal government shutdown, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, urged Senate colleagues to stay in Washington, D.C. to help reopen the government.
“There is so much that is coming at us like a freight train,” Murkowski said, in a speech on the Senate floor on Oct. 27.
She addressed multiple specific programs at risk during her speech.
Unless the shutdown ends by Oct. 31, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments will not be processed and food benefits will not be available on Nov. 1 for the 66,000 Alaskans who rely on them, according to Murkowski. The Women, Infant and Children (WIC) payments will be impacted as well, she said.
Those cuts coupled with the hundreds of people evacuated and enormous in the wake of Typhoon Halong will negatively impact Alaskans, she said.
“We are already hearing the lines at the food bank growing longer,” she said. “And what is hard to see is knowing how many military families are part of those lines.”
In addition to people displayed by the destruction of rural western communities, there are many others impacted by the government shutdown who have not been paid.
Murkowski noted employees with the U.S. Coast Guard and many other agencies are stressed from not getting paid because of the federal shutdown. She spoke of a call from a person in Fairbanks who told her she woke up to a $2,500 bill for heating oil – something that wouldn’t normally be a problem, but is now since she works for the federal government and isn’t getting a paycheck. The woman suggested to Murkowski that maybe Congress members should take fewer long weekends.
“I think she is right,” Murkowski said. “I don’t think we should be going home and just behaving as if this was another week in the United States Senate. Not when we have a government shutdown.”
Murkowski also spoke of the impact of the shutdown on medical care, emergency construction funds to fix a school roof falling apart in Sleetmute, and more impacting the lives of Alaskans statewide.
The senator argued that the real loser during the shutdown isn’t either political party.
“I know that we have our positions,” she said. “(But) we have got to come together, which means we’ve got to talk to one another. And it can’t be about Republicans winning and Democrats losing, or Democrats winning and Republicans losing. Because right now, those that are losing are the American people.”
“I’m going to call on all of my colleagues to stay here until we get it done,” she added.
