Government Shutdown is Reckless and Irresponsible

As I'm sure you've heard, in one day the Federal Government will shut down unless Democrats and Republicans can come together and find a compromise on our national budget.

A shutdown could drastically reduce the vital services we depend on. It would send 53,000 Coloradans home without pay, stop the IRS from processing tax refunds, force our soldiers to work without pay, drastically reduce veterans' services and close our national parks.

We can't let this happen.

I'm leading a group of 16 senators to broker a bipartisan compromise to avoid this crisis. Sign our letter to John Boehner and tell him to come back to the negotiating table!

We all can agree addressing our long-term debt must be a priority. To that end, we've made significant progress and the compromise we've proposed to avoid shutdown cuts tens of billions of dollars from the federal budget.

But some of my colleagues will not support any compromise unless it contains policy "riders" to restrict the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to keep our air clean and deprive millions of women of the vital services that Planned Parenthood health centers provide. At a time when our sole focus should be on creating jobs and re-igniting the American innovative spirit, it is nothing short of reckless to shutdown government over partisan ideology.

I'm leading a group of 16 senators to broker a bipartisan compromise to avoid this crisis. Sign our letter to John Boehner and tell him to come back to the negotiating table!

A complete shutdown will jeopardize economic recovery, strain investor confidence, and pull the rug out from under millions of working families struggling to make ends meet. Market analysts have noted that if a shutdown continued for longer than a few days, we could lose as much as 0.2% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product every week until the government got up and running again.

I'm leading a group of 16 senators to broker a bipartisan compromise to avoid this crisis. Sign our letter to John Boehner and tell him to come back to the negotiating table!

This is unacceptable after all the work we've done to stabilize and grow the economy the last few years. I'll continue to try to bring my colleagues together and build consensus around a compromise that keeps faith with our needs to grow the economy, create jobs, and be responsible with how we invest taxpayer dollars.

Sincerely,

Mark Udall
U.S. Senator