Tag: Premium

A reader writes:

My 80-year-old father-in-law is a Korean War vet and was 11 when we invaded Normandy. He has not been abroad since he returned from his tour in 1956. As part of his 80th birthday celebration, my wife asked that we find a way for me to take him to Europe to see all the WWII sights he’s been reading about since he was a young boy. For over a year now I’ve been planning and saving for this trip, and we leave one week from today.

But we might be forced to miss it because of GOP obstructionism. The American cemetery at Normandy and Patton’s grave at the US cemetery in Luxembourg, you see, are administered by the American Battlefield Monuments Commission, so they are essentially national parks overseas and closed due to lack of funding. Sixty-nine years of waiting to see one of our nations most sacred sights, and most likely his only opportunity, and this good and decent man may miss it because a congressional leader doesn’t have the will to stand up to his radical fringe.

Another reader:

I know this doesn’t qualify under the window rules, but I wanted to share it anyway regarding the government antics. I’m out here in San Francisco on long vacation. Today, I hiked from the wharf out to the ocean. At my starting point, I saw confused and pissed-off tourists, locked out of Alcatraz, waiting in line to get refunds. One lady from Leeds, here with family on vacation, said, “Even our government isn’t this messed up.”

I ended my hike four hours later at my favorite bar, Louis’s at Land’s End. Despite its stellar view of the Pacific, it was deserted. A waitress told me that everyone was scared off because technically Louis’s, which leases its little aerie from the U.S. Parks Service, was supposed to be closed. “But the owner said screw ’em and opened anyway.” So thanks so the House Republicans, I had my Anchor Steam beer – and this view – all to myself.

Another:

I might just be one of the only federal employees who is saving money from being furloughed.

I’m an attorney with a very very long commute, and I’m not getting paid for my year-long fellowship.  So I’m not concerned about how this impacts me personally.  I am concerned, however, about the work that is getting put on hold.  I spend my days enforcing and investigating violations of civil rights laws, primarily the Americans with Disabilities Act and Fair Housing Act.  I’ve had to put a number of settlement negotiations on pause as the victims of discrimination wait patiently on the sidelines. It’s a very small group of us in our office doing this work, and we’re all sitting at home.  And believe me, our district is in dire need of a vigorous enforcement of these laws.

Another:

I work for a company that does a significant amount of business with the federal government. Our client list includes the EPA, Department of Energy, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Housing and Urban Development, and the National Institutes for Health. These are the kind of agencies that many on the right would likely target as non-essential under any circumstance and that they are comfortable with shutting down now.

But here are some of the things that these agencies do, just from the perspective of our work with them: reduce pollution in our water system, lower energy usage in buildings in a cost-effective manner, prevent people – especially children and the aged – from being exposed to chemicals and other hazards that could jeopardize their health or kill them, and encourage builders to construct homes that are environmentally sound and energy efficient. Just to name a few things.

So, I laugh (sort of) when those who support the shutdown talk about how we can get by without most of this stuff. I guess they don’t breathe, drink water, live in homes, work in buildings or have any illnesses in their families. They’re pretty lucky, I guess.

I feel a general sense of low-level anxiety at our company. We’re keeping busy right now with internal tasks but how long that can last, I have no idea. I suspect the next step will be asking/encouraging people to use vacation time, if they can. Then, who knows?

It’s really nice that some of the Republican “leaders” decided to make sure the old vets could visit the World War II Memorial. Maybe they could do something a little more constructive that doesn’t also constitute a photo opp.

Another:

I’m an Aerospace Engineer who evaluates safety issues for the FAA. A couple of my coworkers and I have been excepted to keep up on the highest priority tasks, and evaluating new potential issues as they come in. But 90% of my coworkers (most of whom don’t work full time on operational safety) are furloughed. If this extends for much longer we’re going to have to bring back more people, because as lower priority issues sit for too long, they tend to bubble up the risk scale, and we don’t want to have to start grounding airplanes. Luckily, we have the flexibility to initiate call backs.

Three years ago, before becoming a civil servant, I would’ve shrugged off the folks who claim these absolute minimum staffing levels constitute the proper amount of government. I might have even conceded the principle. But having seen the sausage being made, it’s amazing how little these small-government fetishists know about what gets done day to day. Oftentimes, zilch.

One more:

I’ve been reading the various iterations of your blog since the Pleistocene era of the blogworld. I finally [tinypass_offer text=”subscribed”] today. I’ve been meaning to for a long time, but today I pulled the trigger. Your blog is the only place where I’ve seen all these stories of people actually affected by the shutdown brought on by the virulent clown-show that is the modern Republican Party. This is the bit from one of your readers that pulled me in: “While the Neo-Confederate toddlers stamp their feet and hold their breath, it is America that is turning blue.”

I’ve long since fallen under the spell of your writing. But today made it clear to me that I’ve also fallen under the spell of your readers’ writing as well. It is this extraordinary back and forth between writer and reader – which is not to be found anywhere else on the intertubez – which is ultimately irresistible to me.

And us as well. Read the whole series here, as well as unfiltered response from readers on our Facebook page. Our ever-growing archive of reader threads is here.

A reader writes:

I’m trying to bring my fiancee, who currently lives in Mongolia, to the United States on a K-1 visa. We were both ecstatic when my K-1 visa application was recently approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The next step is for the approved visa application to be forwarded to the National Visa Center, and from there to the U.S. Consulate in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. As I watched the news about the attempt to pass a CR, I thought that it was unfortunate, but wouldn’t affect me directly.

Then suddenly it occurred to me that visa processing was almost certainly considered a “non-essential” government service, so I looked it up, and sure enough, immigration services is one of the things that will be severely curtailed or completely halted by the government shutdown. Which means that my reunion with my fiancee, which had looked to be on track to happen by the end of the year, is now being postponed indefinitely until the shutdown is resolved.

Update from a reader:

I work for USCIS and I can assure you that this is not true. Immigration services within DHS and DOS are entirely fee based. Immigration paperwork is being processed as normal. The only delay will be the normal processing delay that accompanies any application or petition.

Update from the first reader:

It may be true that will USCIS will continue to operate as normal, but as I stated, my visa application has already been approved, which means that USCIS is no longer involved. The visa application has already been moved to the National Visa Center, and from there to the State Department. Per this document, guidance from State in anticipation of the 2011 shutdown indicated that State would severely curtail non-emergency visa-related activities.

I appreciate your effort to put a human face on this political farce.

One more update:

I am a Foreign Service Officer currently serving abroad.  In 2011, State Department guidance stated that visa services would be curtailed. This time around, we were given new guidance stating that all visa and citizenship services were fee based and would stay open (see Chapter 2, part C).  I hope that your reader can be reunited with his fiancee soon, and thankfully the shutdown should not slow down their reunion.

Another reader:

I work for the Indian Health Service on the Navajo reservation. My rural hospital is “essential” and we are still open for business. We are continuing to get paid, although we cannot take sick leave or vacation. It was heartbreaking to see one of our medical records employees coming back into work on Tuesday less than two weeks after having a baby. Like most of our staff, she is Navajo. The unemployment rate on the reservation nears 50%, so anyone with even a low wage job supports many extended family members. She could not afford to take unpaid leave.

As much as the shutdown impacts our staff, it hurts our patients more.

On October 1st, we got an email stating that we do not have funds to pay for medical care outside of our system. We do not employ cardiologists, oncologists, neurosurgeons, etc. All pending appointments that are not urgently life or limb threatening are cancelled until further notice.

Today, October 3, we got another email stating that our pharmacy does not have funds to buy medicines. We are only ordering medications that are “of a life saving and sustaining nature.” We already work hard to keep medication costs low. But now, for just one example, we are no longer able to stock medications to treat rheumatoid arthritis, a disease with particularly high rates in our population.

The United States government is bound by treaty to provide health care for Native Americans. The lack of a budget is gravely impacting our ability to honor that that obligation.

Another:

I am a furloughed government employee.  This government shutdown is so disheartening. I work in an office that deals with international issues and coordinates with the equivalent agencies in other countries.  We send delegates frequently to conferences to coordinate cooperative pilot programs, capacity building exercises for developing countries, and the negotiation of international agreements.  International meetings are on-going despite the shut-down, and the United States has lost its voice, investments, and subject matter experts for the time being.

It pains me that we have all be locked out of our offices and the missions we serve.  However, it’s merely the final step in a long line of insults: no cost of living increases for four years, endless budget uncertainty due to a revolving door of continuing resolutions, hiring freezes, cuts, and the still-continuing sequester.  My agency has not seen a Senate-confirmed leader in four years.  We have endured audits of 15 years worth of travel and conferences because of the GSA Law Vegas Scandal, though we had nothing to do with it. We are cautioned to not do anything that could be perceived as partisan in the wake of the IRS non-scandal, and have to make unnecessary, inconvenient, expensive accommodations to ensure that our office’s activities ensure money/attention flowing towards the states of the chairmen and ranking members of the congressional committees that oversee us.  We’re called leeches and ne’er-do-wells and told we “never created a single job.”

I hate the stereotypes that the Tea-Party has assigned government workers and greatly wish that Speaker Boehner and his party could come and meet us.  My office is so diverse: we have grandparents, thirty and forty-somethings, and childless millennials.  We have veterans from all five armed service branches, including those who saw active combat in Vietnam, Desert Storm, Kosovo, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  We come from almost every state, and numerous colleges, universities, and career paths.

We don’t always agree on everything, but everyone works hard to pursue our office’s mission as a group, and navigate the sometimes draconian regulations that reflect an inherent distrust of us.  We all value public service, and there are several co-workers who cannot speak about 9/11 without getting emotional.  This is a very painful time emotionally as well as financially/logistically.  Some of my co-workers with decades of experience are actively looking for other work, which would be a huge loss to my agency’s institutional memory.  I can only imagine how many more across the entire government workforce are now doing the same.

I know I’m probably just a chump, but I believe it’s an honor to serve the People of the United States, and I got teary-eyed when I took my oath to “support and defend the Constitution…”  I wonder if the Republicans really believe they are upholding the Constitution as they strive to bring the U.S. to default to invalidate a legitimately passed and judicially-reviewed law?

Read the entire “View From Your Shutdown” series here.

More readers share their stories:

Yup, I’m a federal employee who was furloughed.  And because of it, I can’t afford to keep paying my husband’s home health aid (he’s a 30-year paraplegic and 4-year stroke survivor).  Not only will I be home to tend him, but I won’t have the income to pay this good, hard-working young lady.  And because she has lost HER income, she will have to let go her child’s babysitter.

Update from a reader:

About the woman who “can’t afford to keep paying” her husband’s personal health aide.  It’s three days into the shutdown.  She will almost certainly be reimbursed.  Does she have no personal savings whatsoever?  If so, shame on her.  I find that those on the Democratic side often pay lip service to the idea of individual responsibility, but I wonder sometimes what they think it means.  A federal employee with full health benefits and a good federal savings plan really has no excuse for not having, at the very least, six months of living expenses saved up.  That is basic personal finance.  No doubt, some people are hurting from the sequester and the shutdown, but this knee-jerk helplessness is frankly annoying.

Update from another:

Excuse me? No excuse for not having six months of living expenses saved up? How about having a paraplegic spouse and all the costs that entails? Does this person realize how many people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck? Having six months of living expenses is a luxury to millions in this country.  To judge someone with a disabled spouse for struggling immediately from this shutdown, when the whole point of the shutdown is to stop a healthcare bill that will keep people from going bankrupt because of medical bills … just stunning.

Another reader:

I work at the National Science Foundation. As you can see from the photo, we shut down completely. So, I’ve been furloughed. I had hoped it’d be a day, perhaps two at most, but by the looks of it now, it might last into next week and beyond.

This is costing a fortune. Part of my work is planning and organizing very needed collaborative meetings between scientists. I have several coming up. If the shutdowncontinues another week, those will be postponed or canceled with the attending loss of monies that were sunk into flights, rentals, etc. In my event alone, dozens of scientists and educators will have to cancel flights and plans and NSF will have to eat the cost. Of course this doesn’t take into account the hundreds of man hours of preparation it took to get this meeting off the ground, which now will have been for naught.

And I’m not getting paid. I can handle a few days, but the further this goes on, the more likely it is this will turn into a hardship. I absolutely love my job. I believe it is a huge benefit to our nation and to people. I love it because I truly believe that. I go into every day of work with a purpose that benefits the nation and mankind, and I work with amazing people. What more could a man want?

And yet I am not even allowed to work with no pay during the shutdown. It’s actually against the law. I honestly wish I could.

Fiscal conservatives? Surely not.

Another:

I’m an attorney for nonprofits and small businesses.  Because of the shutdown, it’s impossible to get an Employer Identification Number (EIN), which in most cases is required in order to open a corporate bank account.  Without a bank account, my startup clients simply cannot begin operating.  (Before someone raises the idea, using a personal bank account can lead to personal liability – something we never recommend.) Talk about grinding business to a halt.  Any Republican who says the shutdown is just a “slimdown” clearly isn’t trying to start a business.

Another:

My 18-year-old daughter was supposed to start a year of community service in AmeriCorps on Oct. 7 in Denver, where one imagines they could use some young, barely paid idealists to help with the flood damage.  She was very excited to get started on this adventure, and deferred her college start date for a year in order to serve.  What message have we sent her and all those who work for lower pay and lower appreciation in public service?

While the Neo-Confederate toddlers stamp their feet and hold their breath, it is America that is turning blue.

Many more stories below:

First of all, I promise to [tinypass_offer text=”subscribe”].  I’ve just been too busy to pull out the credit card, but I will do so now after I send this note. Anyway, the view from my shutdown is this:

I am the Chair of the Board of a non-profit organization that does a great deal of work on a variety of science issues.  I would say that about a quarter of our effort is with federal partners.  We scheduled a small conference for this month about two years ago and the staff of the organization spent a considerable amount of time and money in putting it together.  It is looking more likely that we will cancel the event, since many of the participants cannot attend now.

In addition, we work with our federal partners on a number of science issues and all of this work is looking like it will be delayed  considerably and the staff of our organization is having to jump into other projects, only to likely jump back when the government becomes sane again.  Some of this work is rather time sensitive and will require starting experiments over.

As the chairman of the board of this organization, I am starting to strategize how we can better align our resources so we do not have to work with an increasingly erratic and anti-science federal government.  We also work with a number of state and local governments and they are very easy to work with and do not have these insane battles.  It is looking increasingly like state and local governments are the adults in the overall governance of our nation.

Another:

I’m a medical research scientist focused on developing therapy for ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s disease). Half of my funding comes from private foundations such as the ALS Association; the other half from the National Institutes of Health. With the shutdown, we’ve been told that we are permitted to proceed using the funds already disbursed, but not to expect any further funding until the shutdown is over. We will be OK for a few weeks and then the programs will begin to rapidly degrade. The consequences of the shutdown will be amplified by the way NIH funding is a rolling system.

I also review grant applications to the NIH on ALS research. I’m not paid to do this; it’s a service many of us do out of scientific citizenship. About 1 in 11 of these grants get funded typically, but it will be awhile before any new grants are processed because the entire system is shut down. For every day this system is shut down, it will take 2-3 days to get through the backlog in addition to the new work.

Another:

I think that this is a very important thread because it brings to life the very real consequences created by a very small group of wack-jobs.  Next week I was planning to take my family on a vacation to see the Grand Canyon for the very first time.  We have been excitedly planning this trip for the past 8 months.  My daughters have been learning about the Grand Canyon and surrounding areas and we were excited to finally be able to see this amazing place with our own eyes.  I cancelled the trip this morning.

It’s unfortunate that we won’t be seeing the Canyon, but what’s more important is that a handful of restaurants, hotels, gas stations and gift shops will not be getting my money.  We had planned on around $2000 for the trip for hotels, food, gas gifts and sight seeing.  I know that this doesn’t sound like a lot but it adds up when hundreds if not thousands of others are being forced to do the very same thing.  The funniest part about this is that the congressman who represents Northern Arizona is one of the Republican wack-jobs responsible for this shutdown, so in a way I’m happy my money will not be supporting his district.

One more reader:

My best friend’s brother is a park ranger in Utah in charge of making sure no one enters a national park in Southern Utah, which is closed while the government is shutdown. Yesterday he spent the day being cursed at, cried to, and even spit at (seriously, people?) for having to turn visitors away at the gate. It’s unfortunate and not right, but it’s not the first time that people take out their anger and frustration on the messenger.

But similar reprehensible actions coming from a US Representative, in public, to a government worker? Unconscionable. Not much showcases the Beltway bubble more than seeing and hearing a congressman shaming a government worker for doing her job, whose current duties are a direct ramification of that very congressman’s neglect to do his own job. They’re so insulated within their echo chamber they’re completely divorced from reality. And these are the people threatening the entire world economy without even knowing their own demands.