SENATE SHOULD END SHUTDOWN

Graphic by Angeles Ramirez / the Advocate

What does Mitch McConnell have in common with a TSA worker at an airport? Besides being involved with the federal government shutdown, nothing else.

I mean that literally, because if there is one thing I’ve noticed during this shutdown debacle, it’s that the class divide is stronger than it has ever been. Why is it that government institutions are taking their sweet time with this shutdown, while every minute and hour that goes by is a missed opportunity for a federal worker to get paid?

Let’s take a moment and realize that congressional politicians themselves won’t have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck; senators such as McConnell haven’t had to worry about a financial struggle for years, and to these people, time isn’t money.

I’m not a federal employee but, I’m a person who understands how important money is when you’re in a financial dry spell. It’s hard, but  I’m lucky enough to be young, without kids, or a family to support. Keep in mind these workers are essentially working for free. The people who are affected are working jobs that a politician wouldn’t even consider doing.

All of this cultivates a situation where nobody knows what they’re supposed to do. I think we should always (in a perfect world) have faith in the politicians who represent us, but right now partisanship is so extreme that our leaders would rather choose party over people.

There have been situations like this in the past, such as the shutdown over Obamacare, but the resolution of that battle showed us that there is at least a separation of powers to show Congress the way out. The current relationship between Senate leaders and the executive branch is unhealthy because they’re too close: McConnell, the senate majority leader, said he won’t sign off on a budget bill that the president doesn’t approve of. This is bad because his job is to simply accept/modify the bill the House passed, against the president’s wishes, to end the shutdown.

This shutdown is continuing while I type this, and while McConnell is pondering the future of the Republican party and the senate as a whole, 800,000 federal workers will have gone without pay for over a month and that’s not even counting the thousands more dependents that they are supporting. (Note: This is a cash-flow problem, as federal workers will be paid retroactively for time lost, but only when the shutdown ends.)

There are other worries, such as those people who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits (i.e., food stamps), and the store owners where they are most often redeemed, if the shutdown extends much into February. Which means that people who are being helped by government programs potentially join the federal workers as a group marginalized in this shutdown.

We haven’t seen anything like this in politics, in terms of the lack of leadership and accountability, but what pains me most, for the sake of my fellow citizens, is the timing.

This shutdown started before an already stressful holiday season, and the continuation only makes it harder. To simply say that workers aren’t getting paid isn’t stressing it enough: The workers are working, while politicians don’t work, and only one group can end this shutdown.

Advocate Staff