By Tessa Roy, WPRO News
Soon after President Donald Trump announced that a deal had been reached to reopen the government for three weeks while negotiations on border security continue, Rhode Island’s members of Congress reacted.
Congressman Jim Langevin said that though “we all want” stronger border security, he hopes Trump “has realized once and for all that it is unacceptable to use federal workers and the American public as political pawns to fulfill his campaign promise of building a wall.”
“President Trump finally accepted reality today. From day one, I have said that a government shutdown cannot be used as a political weapon. Democrats have insisted that the government be open before negotiations on border security could take place, and this afternoon, the President finally accepted the deal that has been on the table for a month,” Langevin said. “What is outrageous is that the President came to his senses only after 35 days of suffering for unpaid federal workers and the American people who rely on the critical services they provide.”
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse called the 35-day shutdown that affected the paychecks of 800,000 federal workers “pointless and costly.”
“His political stunt has hurt families in Rhode Island and across the country and damaged our economy. I’m glad it’s over. I hope the president has learned his lesson and won’t again play politics with Americans’ paychecks. Deliberately disabling American government is not a proper act of any president,” he said.
Senator Jack Reed agreed the shutdown was “wasteful.”
“I support re-opening the government and getting our country working again. And I am incredibly grateful to the hundreds of thousands of federal workers and their families, who were left without a paycheck for over a month. They suffered real hardships, and it’s a positive that we’ve already passed legislation ensuring their back pay. I plan to continue working to ensure they are paid as quickly as possible. No president should ever again use the federal workforce as a hostage,” he said in part. “With the federal government open, I will work in good faith on sensible border security policies and to fully fund the federal government for the rest of 2019. This is just a short-term fix, but it is good news that the President finally realized the damage his strategy was inflicting on the country.”
Congressman David Cicilline said “The American people don’t want the President’s big dumb wall.”
“The President and Mitch McConnell never should have shut down the government in the first place. It’s critical that they never do this again. FBI agents, TSA workers, and air traffic controllers are hardworking men and women. They should never be used as pawns by the President and the Republican Leader,” he said. “Republicans already wasted trillions of dollars on a tax cut for the wealthy and big corporations. Democrats are eager to fund tough, effective border security, but we’re not going to waste more money to keep the President from throwing another temper tantrum.”
