Government Shutdown

The vast majority of Americans will feel little or no effect from the looming government shutdown.  Many of these people will have little to no interest in the shutdown and I would have been in that boat less than a year ago.  I am in the first year of a government job and this possible shutdown could have devastating consequences to my family.  After selling my house and moving my family across the country we were left with very little cushion to weather any financial storms.  I looked at it as a risk that we had to take.  Part of the tradeoff of the lower pay from working for the government was the job security.  Now I don't even have that.  This situation is very stressful to me, my family, and most of my coworkers. 

One of the hardest parts of the looming shutdown has been the silence from the government about what to expect.  My bosses are as much in the dark as I am.  I have no idea if I'm deemed essential, however, I suspect that I am not.  I'm not even sure how I'm supposed to know if I should come to work on Monday.  I assume that the news would be an appropriate source, but it would be nice to have a procedure in place. 

This whole process has been rather enlightening about the whole political process.  During the week of President's Day Congress decided to take the whole week off even though the continuing resolution was set to expire at the end of that week.  They extended the CR, but the lack of aggressively tackling this budget issue was disheartening.  We are half way through the fiscal year and there is no budget.  This is Congress' main duty.  If I were 6 months late on a task I probably would be let go from my job.  The other part that is disheartening is the lack of caring that many in Congress seem to have for the Federal employee.  There are Congressmen out there calling for a shutdown who could care less how many people they financially ruin in the process.  For example, here is a quote from the Washington Post:

“If liberals in the Senate would rather play political games and force a government shutdown, instead of accepting a modest down payment on fiscal discipline and reform, I say, ‘Shut it down!’ ” yelled Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) at a tea party rally at the Capitol.

I'm sorry, but the time for this hardline response was 6 months ago.  It's time to compromise.  Again, you're playing chicken with other people's lives.  I don't understand why Federal employees are being vilified and blamed for the deficit.  I'm pretty sure that Joe Federal employee making $40k a year is really the problem.  I'm sure the deficit has nothing to do with bailing out huge banks so their executives can take golden parachutes and still not loan small businesses and average Americans money.

Enough with the pissing match.