From Al Franken

Dear Joseph --

The bad news is that Republicans in the House have succeeded in doing a really dumb thing for the worst possible reason: they’ve shut down the government because they don’t like Obamacare.

Now basic government services have stopped. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are prohibited from doing their jobs. Many more are forced to work not knowing when they'll get their next paycheck. And our economy is at serious risk.

Fortunately, it would take about five minutes for House Republicans to fix this by re-opening the government.

It’s not just Democrats who know that’s the right thing to do -- a growing number of Republicans in the House are also ready to fund the government and move on from this disaster. And as more and more people take advantage of the benefits of Obamacare, it’s going to keep being a worse and worse idea to hold the government hostage in an attempt to take those benefits away.

But we need more House Republicans to come to their senses, and we need them to do it quickly, before this unnecessary and, frankly, really dumb shutdown causes more harm to our economy. It’s time for House Republicans to stop the madness and end the shutdown.

We knew a government shutdown would be disastrous. That’s why 30,000 people signed our petition calling on House Republicans not to cause one. But now that the government is shut down, every day costs our country more. We need to raise our voices louder than ever and call for some sanity.

Thanks,
Al

P.S.: The only way we’re going to bring an end to this government shutdown is if the voices of reason are louder than the voices calling for more ideological gamesmanship. You have a voice of reason -- use it!