Day four of the United States of America federal government shutdown began with Congressman Mark Sanford telling the nation about his shock in arriving at the Lincoln Memorial on October 2, 2013, for his morning run and finding the memorial closed. Sanford expressed the anger of many Americans upset over the government shutdown.
“I had planned on making a run last night and then tragically the shooting occurred here yesterday. But it turns out there are some things that I didn't know about the Lincoln Memorial. I became so agitated that I asked a tourist to take a picture. It is an amazing picture of the Lincoln Memorial without people. Because what I have come to learn is that it has always been a place with people. I didn't realize that in the last government shutdown President Clinton elected not to close down the Lincoln Memorial. I didn't realize that there have been 17 shutdowns in this country since 1976 and not one president elected to close down the Lincoln Memorial,” Sanford said.
“That means President Ford, President Carter, President Reagan, President Bush and President Clinton each when given the discretion in how they would handle a shutdown chose not to hold the Americans hostage in somehow gaining political favor by a shutdown that would hurt them on their tour to Washington, D.C.,” Sanford said.
The customers who have come to Washington to visit the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial are customers who are not being served by the American government. However, the small business men and women who earn their living working in the vendor trucks that line the streets to serve the customers as they visit the monuments are also suffering every single day that the government is shut down.
The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives said that the shutdown was not a game. He said the American people do not want their government shut down. President Barack Obama has cancelled his planned trip to Asia to address the crisis of the government being shut down. Yet, 800,000 federal workers remain on furlough without a penny being earned. According to Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, the Capitol Police who defended the Congress on October 3, 2013, are not being paid. This is a crisis of enormous consequence for those who are not earning a penny each day the government is closed down.
“Dr. Martin Luther King came to its steps, he talked about the American dream for many pieces of America and many people of America were in chains. And this president chooses to chain the Lincoln Memorial in a way that has never been done in the history of the Republic,” Sanford said.
The Congress will be working on Saturday October 5, 2013, as the shutdown moves into its day five. Examiner.com will cover the continued effort to resolve the impasse.
