Workers' Union Demands Immediate End To Government Shutdown
Federal Workers’ Union Demands Immediate End To Government Shutdown
The largest union of federal workers has demanded a “clean” end to the government shutdown as it nears the month mark.
According to AP, Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, released a statement on Tuesday asking for an immediate end to the shutdown. “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship,” said Kelley.
Between working an entire month without pay and the constant threat of layoffs by the Trump administration, the government shutdown has significantly impacted federal workers. Last week, a food drive intended to help federal workers in Maryland had lines wrapped around the building, with organizers saying the number of households they helped was significantly higher than they initially projected.
While the federal workers union holds quite a bit of weight with the Democratic Party, Kelly’s request hasn’t inspired congressional Democrats to back down. In addition to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies at the heart of the shutdown, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine wants assurances from the Trump administration that they won’t continue laying off federal workers.
“We’ve got to get a deal with Donald Trump,” Kaine told AP.
The government shutdown began at the start of October over expiring subsidies for insurance provided through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The subsidies were implemented during COVID to ensure as many Americans as possible were insured during the pandemic.
While Republicans control both the House and Senate, funding bills require 60 votes to pass in the Senate. The Republicans only have 53 seats in the Senate, which gives the Democrats some rare leverage to negotiate policy.
The impact of the shutdown is going to spread to tens of millions of Americans in the upcoming week, as several programs intended to help low-income families will lose funding. Forty-two million Americans who rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, or food stamps, will not have their EBT cards reloaded when the month starts.
As the weather cools on the East Coast, the 6 million Americans who rely on a federal program to subsidize energy costs may face utility outages and expensive heating bills. The 140 federally funded Head Start after-school programs will close next week, leaving 65,000 families scrambling for child care.
“What we’re doing is layering these losses on the most vulnerable in our society,” Laura Justice, an expert in early-childhood cognitive development at Ohio State University, told the New York Times. “These are families who, because they live in lower-income households, they’re already dealing with exacerbated stress in their daily lives.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has laid the blame for the funding lapses on the Trump administration. “The administration is making an intentional choice not to fund SNAP this weekend,” Schumer told the Times. “The emergency funding is there. The administration is just choosing not to use it.”
Considering that the Trump administration is spending $250 million on an unnecessary White House renovation and recently sent $40 billion to Argentina, I can’t help but feel like they’re playing in our faces when they say they don’t have funding to keep these programs afloat through the shutdown.
Next week, the open enrollment period for ACA health care goes live, where millions of Americans will see their monthly premiums increase by as much as 75%. The exorbitant cost of Medicare is expected to largely affect older Americans living on a fixed income and Gen Z and millennials, who often work jobs that don’t provide benefits.
Republicans refuse to negotiate on extending the subsidies during the government shutdown, despite many of their own voters relying on the ACA for health care. Florida, a Republican stronghold, is the state with the highest number of citizens insured through the ACA. Despite spending well over a decade complaining about Obamacare, Republicans have not used that time to implement a better system. House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN last week that “It’s a very complicated, very complex issue, that requires a long time to build consensus around.”
So to sum it up, the Republicans have no concrete plan to improve the American health care system, but also refuse to make it affordable for the majority of Americans. No wonder they’re working so hard to gerrymander the midterms.
SEE ALSO:
Here’s Where We Are In The Current Government Shutdown
Federal Workforce Layoffs Begin Amid Government Shutdown
Federal Workers’ Union Demands Immediate End To Government Shutdown was originally published on newsone.com
