by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
There hasn't been much progress in the Ann Coulter-inspiried partial government shutdown of late, but one thing of significance did occur over the past few days. It now looks as though all of the unpaid government workers will get their back pay - eventually.
Thursday Donald Trump, the person who owns this mess, announced that government workers affected by the shutdown would get their back pay. The Senate then quickly confirmed his pronouncement and passed a bill, one hundred to zero, guaranteeing the workers would get their money.
The House met the next day and voted on the same bill, easily passing the measure - but with seven members voting "no."
Let me repeat that: seven members of the House of Representatives voted against guaranteeing that all government workers affected by the shutdown would receive back pay.
Who are these seven heartless and soulless cretins? Not surprisingly they are all white, male, and Republican, a very representative group of House Republicans in general. Individually they were: Justin Amash of Michigan, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Glen Grothman of Wisconsin, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Chip Roy of Texas, and Ted Yoho of Florida. While none of the seven has much of a national following nor any observable pretensions for national office, each must have felt secure enough in his own district to cast this morally reprehensible vote.
As a former Arizonan, Gosar and Biggs are the two who are most familiar to me. Andy Biggs in particular has an interesting life story. Back in 1993 he won $10 million in the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes, an unearned fortune which he was then able to parlay into a successful political career. (Sweepstakes DO have consequences!)
But, Andy's good fortune aside, he and the other six are certainly not above kicking people when they are down. I doubt that the 420,000 "essential" government workers who are still going to work each day but without pay, and the 380,000 "non-essential" government workers who are furloughed and also trying to survive without their paychecks, will forget these seven congressmen and their callous disregard of the government's obligation to pay its employees - and neither should the voters back home.
I pay taxes in order to maintain and benefit from a functioning government - and not to meet the vanity needs of some has-been reality television personality. It's time for the United States to pay its bills and get back to work!
Citizen Journalist
There hasn't been much progress in the Ann Coulter-inspiried partial government shutdown of late, but one thing of significance did occur over the past few days. It now looks as though all of the unpaid government workers will get their back pay - eventually.
Thursday Donald Trump, the person who owns this mess, announced that government workers affected by the shutdown would get their back pay. The Senate then quickly confirmed his pronouncement and passed a bill, one hundred to zero, guaranteeing the workers would get their money.
The House met the next day and voted on the same bill, easily passing the measure - but with seven members voting "no."
Let me repeat that: seven members of the House of Representatives voted against guaranteeing that all government workers affected by the shutdown would receive back pay.
Who are these seven heartless and soulless cretins? Not surprisingly they are all white, male, and Republican, a very representative group of House Republicans in general. Individually they were: Justin Amash of Michigan, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Glen Grothman of Wisconsin, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Chip Roy of Texas, and Ted Yoho of Florida. While none of the seven has much of a national following nor any observable pretensions for national office, each must have felt secure enough in his own district to cast this morally reprehensible vote.
As a former Arizonan, Gosar and Biggs are the two who are most familiar to me. Andy Biggs in particular has an interesting life story. Back in 1993 he won $10 million in the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes, an unearned fortune which he was then able to parlay into a successful political career. (Sweepstakes DO have consequences!)
But, Andy's good fortune aside, he and the other six are certainly not above kicking people when they are down. I doubt that the 420,000 "essential" government workers who are still going to work each day but without pay, and the 380,000 "non-essential" government workers who are furloughed and also trying to survive without their paychecks, will forget these seven congressmen and their callous disregard of the government's obligation to pay its employees - and neither should the voters back home.
I pay taxes in order to maintain and benefit from a functioning government - and not to meet the vanity needs of some has-been reality television personality. It's time for the United States to pay its bills and get back to work!
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