Megan Giles Cooney | Columnist
Pity federal workers furloughed without pay. Since the Oct. 1 government shutdown, roughly 700,000 are anxiously waiting on the White House and Congress to reach agreement on funding the nation’s budget.
The number comes from the Washington, D.C.-based Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonprofit organization working across party lines to improve the lives of Americans.
The Trump administration reports it fired an additional 4,000 workers, with more layoffs planned. Active-duty military and essential federal workers, however, expect to get paid. As do members of Congress.
No domestic issue is currently more pressing than the shutdown caused by partisan discord over health care tax credits. Putting federal workers on pause or firing them outright hurts the country as a whole.
Funding the budget is an essential duty of our government. Not funding it is a dereliction of that duty. And funding one-offs, such as the military, highlights the urgency.
We should not tolerate the willful reluctance of Congress to budge on budget priorities to the detriment of Americans across the country.
What makes this scenario even more galling is that, as workers wait, the government negotiators are receiving paychecks for essentially not doing their job.
Even if you don’t know anyone affected or can’t empathize with furloughed workers, this inaction should trouble you. It underscores the breakdown, now in its fourth week, of a reliable federal government
In every household, there is a bottom-line budget. None of us has the luxury of refusing to pay our bills. Yet that’s happening right now with the federal budget — and we are all impacted.
What can you do about it?
Speak up and implore your senators, representatives and the president with respectful phone calls and emails to put aside partisan politics and find common ground to break the budget impasse.
You can find them by ZIP code. Senate: www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm. House: www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative. Tag them on social media (X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and others).
The U.S. is a mighty nation. But this mess is not normal. Not funding our government is no way to run a country. Settle the deadlock in Congress for the sake of the nation.
Megan Giles Cooney is a columnist for the Traverse City (MI) Record-Eagle. Reach her atmegangilescooney@gmail.com.
