Hi, this is your Congresswoman ███████████████. I'm hosting a telephone town hall right now to answer your questions and address your concerns. You'll be able to ask a question by pressing Star three at any time during the call. Just stay on the line and the call will begin momentarily. Also, if you need assistance with a federal agency, you can always call my office at ████████████. Please hold while we connect you to your Access Live event. The Access Live event is currently in music hold and will start momentarily. Please note this call may be monitored, recorded or rebroadcast. Good evening and welcome to Congresswoman ███████████████'s live telephone town hall. Thank you again for taking the time to join us. I'm █████, the Congressman's chief of staff and your moderator for today's call. I want to quickly explain the format for this call. If you would like to ask a question or share your story, it's very easy. Just press Star three on your phone at any time and a member of our team will assist you. Again, just press Star three to ask Congresswoman ███████ a question or share your story. You can also hit star 6 at any time to subscribe to the Congresswoman's weekly newsletter. If you're listening on Facebook, please leave your questions in the chat and we will be able to get to them as well. Alrighty. The lines are now open, so please press Star three to ask a question. You will be able to find more information about many of the topics the Congresswoman will discuss by visiting her website at ██████████████████████ or by following her on Facebook and Twitter. Now it's time to welcome your voice in ██████████, Congresswoman ███████████████. Welcome, Congresswoman. Thank you so much, █████, and thanks to everyone for joining us. I want to give a special shout out to my amazing team that is working every single day in the shutdown. If you have had a chance to interact with our office, you know they are absolutely the best in the business. I'm so grateful for them and their steadfast service to our district. Thank you again to everyone for joining me. I'm coming to you live from my office here in ████████████████ where I am hard at work for you. We are here today to talk specifically about the government shutdown. Now in week three, we're going to talk about how we got here, how it's impacting families right here in █████████████, what this fight is about and how I think we can get out of this message. Let's start first with how we got here. There is a lot of finger pointing happening in ██████████ right now. A lot of political gamesmanship that does not help anyone. This shutdown has real consequences for the American people. I just left a hearing with representatives from air traffic controllers from around the country who were telling me about their members trying to drive Ubers on the side to make ends meet because they just got their first partial paycheck yesterday. We have a responsibility as a Congress to pass a budget every single year by ██████████████. That date is set. It should not surprise anyone. Every single member of Congress, myself included, bears a certain level of responsibility for passing that budget and at this time for coming to the table to reopen the government. That's exactly why I am here in ██████████ working on that very thing. It needs to be said, however, that there is a party in charge of all three branches of government right now. The Republican Party. A Republican president controls the White House. We have a Republican speaker of the House and a Republican leader in the Senate. That comes with incredible benefits. They get to call the shots. Also incredible responsibilities. Pointing out who is in charge is different from the blame game. It is simply stating facts. The President of the United ██████ needs to be convening both parties and the leaders of the House and the Senate have to come to the table to talk. Standoffs over the budget are as old as Congress itself. But what has not happened is what we are seeing in ██████████ right now, where one side simply refuses to do their job. House Democrats are here in ██████████ every single week. House Republicans are nowhere.