I’d like to thank everyone who is reading this. This editorial is purely about how my family and I are currently being affected by the government shutdown. I just want to share my story, and to help others understand what is happening in our nation.
My father, Ken Rahjes, is an agriculture specialist for U.S. Representative Adrian Smith of Nebraska. My father has an office at home in Elwood, Nebraska, one in Grand Island, Nebraska, and he travels all over the state to conduct all sorts of work.
Now, he has no office. The government has furloughed him.
For those of you who don’t know what a furlough is, here is the definition; “the temporary unpaid leave of some employees due to some special needs of the organization.” Basically, my father is jobless, all because the government can’t work together.
I feel angered, outraged, and disappointed in Congress. This kind of thing should NEVER happen! Are the congressional leaders in Washington D.C. so content in their little bubble that they feel nothing for the rest of the United States?
Yes, I understand, there is a time and a place to debate hot-topic bills. It is not, has not, and will never be a good idea to try to combine two separate bills into one hot-mess-of-a-bill. Shoving parts of the Affordable Care Act into the debt-ceiling bills is not proper legislature.
My father has worked his entire life, every day, in order to get where he is. He (and my mother) did an amazing job raising four kids, including myself, all-the-while busting his rear to provide the best he could for us. I remember as a kid, my dad would always give everything he could, even if he went days without sleep, to make us all happy.
Soon, my father will have to pick up a temp job, and my family will suffer a large financial blow. From there, the problems can only get worse. My family is not the only one either. Approximately 800,000 government workers have been furloughed, and more people are going to feel the effects of the “slimdown” very quickly.
If the government doesn’t wake up and realize that they have the livelihood of citizens currently in a stranglehold during this time of congressional warfare. Soon, many more people outside of my family will be affected. Today, the militia is still being paid, Medicaid is still working, and mail is still running, but how long until those funds run dry? How long will it be before massive sections of U.S. citizens are unable to pay their bills, or buy food? The government’s actions right now are a gigantic mass of absurdities.
Why must we, the people suffer, while the Washington Elite bark at each other? How long will we wait and let the United States continue to crumble, before Congress can pull its head out of where the sun doesn’t shine and fix things? To quote Rodney King, “Why can’t we all just get along?”