Senate Republicans have criticized Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) for allegedly misrepresenting the ongoing government shutdown, which has persisted for over a month, marking the longest such period in U.S. history.
“Families are struggling to make ends meet, federal employees are missing paychecks, and Americans are stuck at airports. This turmoil was caused by Republicans,” Hirono stated on Wednesday.
She further claimed, “Instead of focusing on making health care affordable, they pushed for higher costs, and now, Americans are literally paying for it,” while failing to acknowledge the significant partisan demands, including a staggering $1.5 trillion in spending, put forth by her party’s leaders.
In reply, the Senate Republican Party made a statement.
“For six weeks, she has shifted the consequences of the government shutdown onto the American people, protesting the failures of the Democratic policies she endorsed, which is simply unacceptable,” Senate Republicans remarked.
In reality, Democrats have voted against efforts to reopen the government more than a dozen times, all the while blaming Republicans, who preferred straightforward continuing resolutions (CRs) instead of a collection of partisan requests. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) noted during the shutdown that Democratic proposals for government reopening included $3.9 million in democracy grants for LGBTQI+ initiatives in the Western Balkans.
“Reimbursing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would allocate $500 million to left-leaning news outlets and restore up to $5 billion in taxpayer money that was spent on unnecessary international projects,” he stated.
“Here are some examples from their own proposal for the CR designed to keep the government functioning. They wish to allocate $24.6 million of taxpayer money towards climate resilience initiatives in Honduras,” Johnson continued.
“They are looking to spend $13.4 million on civic engagement projects in Zimbabwe. They also want to direct $3.9 million to LGBTQI+ democracy grants in the Western Balkans. Moreover, they are proposing $2.9 million for desert locust risk reduction in the Horn of Africa and $2 million for promoting feminist democratic principles in Africa,” he added.
On Monday evening, Senate Democrats managed to pass a continuing resolution to reopen the government.
