Today is the sixth day of the government shutdown. The first four days were scheduled days off. The first two were Saturday and Sunday, followed by Christmas Eve, which President Trump decreed as a day off for federal workers, and Christmas.
On Wednesday morning -- barely three hours into the first actual workday in the shutdown by Congress -- Politico reported, "Federal workforce starts to feel pinch of prolonged shutdown."
If federal workers cannot last a single day under these circumstances, maybe we should replace them with adults.
But the headline was clickbait. The story was not about the deprivations government workers suffer, but rather a boring recap of the positions of the president and Senate leaders.
By the way, Congress is the culprit. It has not sent a resolution to the president. He cannot veto something that does not yet exist.
Not until Paragraph 16 is there any comment from federal workers, and it is in the form of a press release from the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers union, which took a personal shot at the president.
But the snotty union statement shows that far from being caught in the middle of a political battle, most federal workers are partisans who hate the president. We need to rethink Civil Service because by protecting employees we have made them unresponsive to the people.
Only six of the first 16 days in this shutdown are workdays. The rest are three weekends, two federal holidays, and two days off from the president.
If the federal government is so important that it cannot be shutdown for a single day, why are we giving employees 10 days off in 16 days?
Please stop using logic, Don. It ruins the narrative.
ReplyDeleteThe real story here is that there are so many "non-essential" government workers. If they're really non-esential, why would we EVER want them back at work?
ReplyDeleteI think a government shutdown done properly should involve something like decimation in the old Roman fashion.
ReplyDeleteOne out of every ten is not enough. - Elric
DeleteTen percent reduction per annum. Repeat every year until we get a gummint like the founders intended.
DeleteThe tenth amendment to the constitution is one sentence, in plain English, and invalidates the vast majority of our current gummint.
"By the way, Congress is the culprit. It has not sent a resolution to the president. He cannot veto something that does not yet exist." Just so:
ReplyDeleteArt. 1, Sect. 7: "Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it..."
Cocaine Mitch wants the president and the House to sign it before they present it to him.
Truly.Washington D.C. is of little use to the ordinary citizens but rather an obstacle.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Jack Schreiber agrees.
DeleteWe need to rethink Civil Service because by protecting employees we have made them unresponsive to the people.
ReplyDeleteThat's what the Demos were counting on back when they owned the government.
I've been a government contractor., worked for two.Outside the DC bubble mind you, but you get no sympathy from me. During the long recession it was DC that grew-creating nothing.. In my little town we have "sidewalks to nowhere" from the phony "shovel-Ready Jobs." "Cash for Clunkers " was a lie too. It is about time that DC feels the pain we "clinging deplorables" felt.-Posted elsewhere too. TG
ReplyDeleteThe Democrat politicians live in fear that the voters will realize that they can get along just fine without most of our federal government.
ReplyDeleteImagine if we, the taxpayers, could designate which government agency gets our tax money. Then the various departments would have to compete for their share of taxes. To get any money at all they would have to produce and impress the taxpayers that they were the place to put their money. These lay-about agencies with no real value for the taxpayers would wither and die for lack of funding
ReplyDeleteI suspect Mitch will engineer some kind of phony Senate vote after he knows the new House is safely seated.
ReplyDelete