Letter to the editor Andi Weiss Bartczak

To the editor:

Now that our President has declared that the partial government shutdown might last for months, it is time for government workers to use their power  I thank the TSA workers for reporting to work while not being paid.  It’s time for them to stage a slowdown in states represented by one or two gutless Republican Senators.  Make sure that all those annoyed people going through a slower security line know what they can do to speed up the process.  If the Republican majority in the Senate passed the remaining budget bills with a veto-proof number, all the government workers will go back to their jobs with pay.

Andi Weiss Bartczak

Publishing history:

Daily Freeman  1/11/19

"Big government" letter to the editor Tom Denton

Big Government

I’m wondering about the landlord who constantly rails against “big government.” How does he feel about his tenant who can’t pay her January rent; she works for an engineering firm connected to the EPA.  I’m wondering about the owner of the small business who, since Ronald Reagan, reflexively votes for candidates who say “government isn’t the solution to the problem—it IS the problem.”  How does she feel when she can’t get the parts she needs to run her business from another operation contracted with the Defense Department?  I’m wondering about the farmer who thinks the federal government is a serial interloper on Western lands.  His crops were devasted by fire and he can’t get forms to apply for disaster relief from the local farm services office of the USDA.

The owner of a B&B near the Gettysburg National Park, whose bookings have dried up . . .

The consumer who will be buying meat that hasn’t been inspected at that shady-looking processing plant down the road . . .

I’m wondering if those folks have been calling the offices of their representatives, demanding that the shutdown end and the government re-open immediately . . . 

Just curious.

Publishing history:

Daily Freeman   1/8/19