I’ve stopped counting which day this is for the federal government’s shutdown. The fact that there is a shutdown at all is the disgrace, so everything that happens as a result of it is a conversation we should not be having. After persons are elected as a senator or representative in our government, they take an oath. It says they will uphold the Constitution—not be more loyal to their party than the people who elected them—not cast blame and point fingers—not watch the “America First” moniker become a joke as our neighbors and friends line up at food banks and clothes closets because the work they’re doing or have done is not being compensated.
Perhaps we, the people, should have set rules that say during a government shutdown, the first people who don’t get paid are the folks who keep letting it shut down. Most of us live paycheck to paycheck no matter how much we earn. We’ve proven that the more we earn, the more we spend, and sadly, the less we save, so when somebody is monkeying around with our fragile livelihoods, that is unacceptable.
The healthcare issue that’s the reason the two sides can’t come together makes no sense. When affordable healthcare becomes everything but affordable, extending the subsidy to prevent exorbitant/double premiums is a no-brainer. When citizens have to choose between food and shelter or medicine and doctor visits, we all lose.
I’m not angry at the federal employees who don’t come to work because they are underappreciated and unpaid. I’m also not angry at the hordes of people who take to the streets every weekend to protest government overreach and threats to our democracy. What I am seething about, however, is that the folks we are paying are not working to fix a system that creates a budget battle with no sensible compromise and/or equitable resolution.
WE, THE PEOPLE, can do better, and we must. Making healthcare affordable is critical. Period. All 435 of our elected representatives ought to start there (since they have great healthcare benefits and nice pensions) and work to make this happen. Just so we’re clear, we are their employer—not the other way around.
Respecting the Constitution and following it cannot be a “do it when it suits us and ignore it when it doesn’t” setup. Firing and hiring people all willy-nilly and destabilizing the structures and entities meant to protect us will leave us vulnerable for years to come. Further, our anti-trust and oversight laws were created to keep monopolies and greedy people from taking over the world. We, the people, must insist that these laws are not diluted and compromised to the point of irrelevance.
Today needs to be the last day of the shutdown. If we thought seven million folks protesting in the streets was something, wait until November 1 and there is no food assistance and millions more American people are broke AND hungry. Heaven help us all, especially the folks who got paid, could’ve done something to stem the suffering, but didn’t.
