YOUR VOICE NEWS & VIEWS • PALM CITY & TESORO • OCTOBER 25, 2013 • 5
MURPHY from page 3 quit. On the eve of his wildly successful Oct. 3 congressional briefing on the Indian River Lagoon, attended by more than 20 members of Congress, the youngest member of the 113th Congress sat down for a oneon-one in his Washington, D.C., office. Murphy, who didn’t take a paycheck during the 16-day partial shutdown, talked about his future in politics, the government shutdown, environment and more. Q: What was the atmosphere like in Congress in the days and hours leading up to the shutdown? Is it has bad as what we see on TV? Is (the partisanship) as tense? A: Confusion, frustration, disbelief. I was very — and still am every day — growing increasingly more frustrated with the fact that we’re shutdown. It’s almost surreal, it’s like a bad dream that I’m just waiting to wake up from. This couldn’t possibly be happening. I’ve been in Congress for eight months and I campaigned against this sort of ridiculous behavior and eight months into office, this is what goes on because leadership can’t get their act together. It’s an embarrassment for this country. Q: What type of message does a
shutdown send? A: The shutdown itself, the government shutdown, sends a message to Americans and to I think a lot of other countries that our government isn’t functioning, our Congress isn’t functioning, that we’re not doing our basic duties of funding the government. That sort of uncertainty, is bad overseas. Domestically speaking, I’m talking of businesses of all sizes, every day that say ‘Hey, you know I was getting ready to go buy a new piece of equipment, you know, I was going to buy a new piece of land to build a new building, I was going to hire five more people, but I don’t know what is going to happen.’ That sort of uncertainty has left a lot of people, unfortunately, having to keep their money on the sidelines because they don’t have faith in our country. They don’t know what interest rates are going to be in a week from now, in a day from now. If we default, interest rates will go up. They don’t know what the regulatory environment is going to be like. Big-picture items that we have solutions for like immigration, like reducing the debt. These are big-picture items we can solve and we’re not doing the basics, so that the big-picture things aren’t even on the table right now. That’s just sad. Q: Is being a Florida native the
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Q: Looking at the water, how do you feel emotionally? A: That’s why I’ve got this bottle of water that I’m carrying it around to show other members of Congress. I brought it to Sen. (Bill) Nelson (D-Fla.) last week. He had that same bottle in 2005 when we had all of these discharges, so I got to talk to him about it. Part of it is just having that visual for those people to see to make that pitch so they
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reason why the lagoon issue has struck you and been a big concern? A: Yes. Growing up as kid in the Florida Keys, I have two uncles that are charter boat fisherman. I grew up fishing and diving and lobstering and enjoying the outdoors never really understanding how the two were connected, the environment and the economy. But I grew up and realized, wow, they’re really integral and intimately connected in Florida. Our local economy is based in tourism and if you take away the nice, clean water, you take away the fishing and the diving, etc. and the Everglades National Park, then those tourists aren’t going to have any reason to come and there goes the economy. So, certainly, yeah, it’s been a big part of my passion for this issue.
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