Thoughts about the Congressional budget crisis

Nearly five month into this fiscal year, the Congress still has not passed a budget for the year. It is thought likely that the government will shut down in two weeks as the continuing resolutions are allowed to expire with no appropriations. There is even a thought that government employees who do not work due to the shut down will not be paid.

Shutting down the government is not a good idea for a country in recession. It will not help solve the unemployment problem.

The first job of the Congress is to determine how much the government is to spend and what it is to spend it on. Both Democratic and Republican members should be held responsible if they can not reach a compromise!

Voters should make their own judgments as to which party is more responsible for a failure to compromise. You should vote against all members of that party since the vote will be on party lines.

When you think about not paying government employees, think what they do for us. They are fighting our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, running the veterans hospitals and veterans services for those who have suffered from fighting these and earlier wars, protecting our borders from illegal immigrants, running the jails housing federal criminals, controlling air traffic to keep us safe, investigating disease outbreaks, and doing a thousand other things we have hired them to do. If the work of the National Institutes of Health is put back by a month, how many people will suffer or die for the month that the cures that they are working on will be delayed?