Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross made headlines Thursday (Jan. 24) after he questioned why some of the 800,000 federal workers furloughed during the partial government shutdown have gone to food banks.
“Well, I know they are and I don’t really quite understand why,” Ross said. “The obligations that they would undertake, say borrowing from a bank or a credit union, are in effect federally guaranteed. So the 30 days of pay that some people will be out — there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan against it.”
For more than a month, the United States government has been partially shut down as the newly elected Democratic Congress has come to an impasse with Donald Trump who’s demanding $5.7 billion to build a wall along the U.S–Mexican border.
Democrats have not budged on the president’s request for a wall, and also say the president and his cabinet are out of touch with
“Is this the ‘Let them eat cake’ kind of attitude?” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Or call your father for money? With that, the speaker evoked Marie Antoinette and took an indirect jab at Trump for inheriting family money to launch his business career.”