Our recent federal government three day shut down, the words “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you” from the song “Stuck In The Middle With You” by the band Stealers Wheel from their 1972 album perfectly sums up current chaos and gridlock in Washington.
Arizona Sen. John McCain has been missing from Washington for the past several weeks. He may have made the correct decision fighting potentially terminal brain cancer by spending his remaining time with family and friends back home rather than participate in the ongoing Washington circus.
Perhaps his voice of reason and willingness to work across the political aisle with Democrats could have made a difference.
If federal civil servants face periodically face furloughs, so too should White House employees, members of Congress and their staff.
Everyone should have been allowed to use yearly earned annual leave against any payless furlough days.
Most federal employees work just as hard as their counterparts in the private sector.
Many in the military, FBI, United States Marshals, ICE and Border Security put their lives on the line every day protecting our nation.
They remained on the payroll but some will suffer from a lag time delay in receipt of pay for the three days in question.
Providing retroactive pay for the 800,000 deemed non essential federal employees who were unable to work as a result of Congressional inaction is unfair to taxpayers.
Since it was the Senate who refused to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open which resulted in the most recent three day shut down, shouldn’t they pick up the tab our of their budget?
Both the President and Congress need to work together if we are ever going to put our fiscal house in order and end future threats of both sequestering and furloughs.
We need to return to the time when Congress held budget hearings for each department during the summer.
A real balanced budget agency by agency was adopted during an open process.
Members of Congress, federal employees, the public, watchdog groups and media were afforded sufficient time to understand the full contents prior to adoption.
Full federal budgets were adopted on time prior to the start of any new federal fiscal year on Oct. 1.
There are just as many good managers in the government as in the private sector. If their superiors would give them the authority and flexibility to manage budgets, they could find savings without having to consider furloughing or laying off employees.
Millions of Americans have cut far more out of their family budgets and managed to survive.
Everyone knows that the thousands of Washington K Street lobbyists representing every conceivable special interest group work behind the scenes hand in hand with the White House, Congress and Congressional staffers in writing their own favored special provisions into every Federal agency funding bill prior to adoption.
We can’t furlough the thousands of lobbyists who swarm around Washington like bees searching for honey.
Hard-working civil servants pay taxes just like everyone else. The White House and Congress should be held accountable for their actions, or in this case in actions, just as employees are at end of the year personnel evaluations.
Voters can conduct their own personnel evaluations of both Congress and the President on Election Day.
Both the President, members of Congress and their respective employees should be docked one full day’s pay for each day our pending full Federal Fiscal Year 2018 budget is not adopted on time.
They need to perform this most basic requirement of their jobs, which is passing a budget on time, just like federal civil servants do on a daily basis.
Why not end bipartisan gridlock and honor Sen. John McCain while he is still alive.
Pass a clean spending bill with no attached amendments for the balance of Fiscal Year 2018 ending on Sep. 30 using Fiscal Year 2017 numbers.
Sincerely,
Larry Penner
Great Neck
