Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.): Furloughed Workers Protest Shutdown: Hundreds of furloughed federal workers rallied in the rain on Thursday alongside the Congressional Progressive Caucus to ask House Republican leaders to allow a vote on a clean government funding bill that would end the government shutdown, Politico reported. Sen. Sanders said the current budget fight was not limited to disagreements over the Affordable Care Act, but a huge ideological struggle for the future of America. Republicans, Sanders said, are using the shutdown to blackmail Democrats into agreeing to deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare and environmental programs. Boehners Offer Totally Unsatisfactory: House Speaker John Boehner Thursday evening offered a six-week extension of the debt ceiling in exchange for budget cut negotiations with President Barack Obama. “Totally unsatisfactory,” Sen. Sanders said of the offer which would leave the government closed. Democrats should insist on ending the government shutdown and on passage of a long-term extension of the debt limit, Sanders added in an MSNBC interview cited by Politico. Reopen America: Instead of offering short-term deals in exchange for prospective cuts to Social Security and other entitlement programs, Sen. Sanders told CNNs Wolf Blitzer that Republicans should do what the American people overwhelmingly want them to do and that is reopen the government and pay our bills. Holding the Nation Hostage: Vermonts congressional delegation remains firmly opposed to Republican efforts in Congress to hold the nation hostage with irrational demands, the Burlington Free Press reported. In an interview with Vermont Public Radio, the congressional delegation urged House Speaker Boehner to allow a vote on a clean funding bill to reopen the government. “This is enormously anti-democratic, and essentially what these guys are trying to do is annul the election in which they lost,” Sen. Sanders said.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Oct 2013 16:06:15 +0000
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