Last night, Congressman Vern Buchanan, Vice Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, appeared on ABC 7 News to discuss the ongoing government shutdown. Buchanan criticized Senate Democrats for what he described as their failure to reopen the government, emphasizing the negative effects on Floridians.
Buchanan announced his support for legislation that would withhold congressional pay during government shutdowns. He is cosponsoring the No Budget, No Pay Act (H.R. 5738), which was introduced by Congressman Tim Moore (R-N.C.).
Addressing the refusal of Senate Democrats to vote in favor of reopening the government, Buchanan stated: “A lot of our [federal] employees—across the state, 155,000 are furloughed—if they’re not getting paid, they’ve got to worry, our members shouldn’t get paid either. We need to have them step up. As Republicans, we have voted to open the government. On the other side, we’ve got five or six senators holding it up, Democratic senators. … Under the Biden administration, 13 different times in a row, we did the same thing in terms of a CR. We need to step up and make a difference for our people across the country.
“A lot of people don’t understand. The CR, I voted for that. All Republicans did, with maybe the exception of one. All the [Republican] senators have supported it. I don’t understand why [Senate Democrats] don’t just do it like we’ve done for the last four or five years, where we’ve passed a CR, we get to work and we deal in good faith. … Members have to step up on both sides.”
On withholding congressional pay during shutdowns Buchanan said: “We’re [co]sponsoring a bill that says, ‘No Budget, No Pay.’ If you don’t deliver a budget, get back to work. I’m a person who has been in business for a lot of years, and I always felt that I eat last. I had a lot of employees. Everybody else gets taken care of—the customers get taken care of, your vendors get taken care of—and if there’s something left, that’s yours. The bottom line is that’s where I’m at now. Enough is enough, and I’m hearing a lot of that from my constituents. What are we doing? We’re not doing enough.”
Buchanan also spoke about how small businesses and employees are being affected by the shutdown: “As a small business person myself, there’s a lot of small business people I talk to everyday. The uncertainty is killing them. There are government programs and projects that aren’t getting paid, and they’ve walked off the jobs. So it’s a bad situation. We’ve got to turn it around, and I’m going to do everything I can to turn that around quickly.”
He has created an online resource hub at buchanan.house.gov/shutdown for constituents impacted by the shutdown.
According to figures from the White House Council of Economic Advisors cited in Buchanan’s office release:
– Florida could lose approximately $911 million each week while the shutdown continues.
– Nearly 155,000 federal workers in Florida have been furloughed or are working without pay.
– Over 2.9 million SNAP recipients in Florida risk losing benefits if there is no resolution.
Vern Buchanan has represented Florida’s 16th district in Congress since 2007 after succeeding Katherine Harris (source). Before serving in Congress he was part of Florida’s House of Representatives (source). Born in Detroit in 1951 and currently residing in Sarasota (source), Buchanan holds degrees from Cleary University and University of Detroit Mercy.
