Greg Awtry

Over a million federal employees are going without paychecks because the House and the Senate can’t agree on how to keep our government open. Calling this a national crisis would be an understatement.

So what is Congress doing about it while a million federal employees are struggling to find enough money to pay their rent and grocery bills? They left their post. They deserted and went home for a two-week spring break. In the military if one did that they could face a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay, and up to 5 years confinement, and if done to avoid hazardous duty or in wartime punishments can increase to life imprisonment.

Being a Representative or Senator in Congress is a much different story. They still get their pay, can go home to enjoy some family time and most likely will be campaigning for your votes in the upcoming election. The people of our country should be outraged, and I am.

What kind of person would desert their post when needed the most? What kind of person would just go home when the country is depending on them to keep our government open?

I will tell you what kind of person does that. We call them Democrats and Republicans, who by their actions, or in this case their inactions, place party above people and are all-consumed by only two things, both more important to them than our country.

They want to gain or re-gain party power and they want to get reelected, which goes hand in hand with their third priority, raising campaign funds. That’s it! With a collective slap across the face of every American, be it a Democrat, Republican, Independent or unaffiliated, they walked out on us.

They are like children fighting over a ball on the playground. So, when these spoiled little brats can’t get their way, they just call each other names and pick up the ball and go home. No punishment, no personal consequences, and in my book, no conscious, compassion or patriotism. It’s no wonder that the Congressional approval rating is only a16 percent. But they don’t care, knowing their chances of getting reelected are 95 percent.

The four leaders of this Congressional clown show, Thune and Schumer in the Senate, Johnson and Jeffries in the House, should have acted like responsible adults, locked themselves in a room and said, “We are not leaving this room or going on some silly spring break in the midst of a partial government shut down with a million employees going without pay. Let’s get to work and agree to a solution that gives us all at least some satisfaction, and something that can get passed in both houses.”

But nope. That would be sensible. That would be responsible. That would the right thing to do. That would be how to run a country. None of this matters. Only Party matters.

How long are we the people going to put up with these children? Most of us have or had jobs. Try doing what they did while on the job. Just go home because you had a disagreement with a fellow employee, and tell your boss you still want your pay and benefits and you will come back in a couple weeks.

Here are the facts… as I see them. Congress is broken. Congress cannot self correct. That task is left up to us, the voters. When will we say to them enough is enough? When we tell them to work together starting right now, or don’t even bother to ask for our votes, simply because you haven’t earned them?

Folks, the current Congress can’t even keep the lights on. They borrow $5 billion dollars a day, every day, from our grandchildren. They haven’t passed a budget on time in the last 25 years. They aren’t leaders. They are just a box of children’s Animal Crackers, with elephants on one side and donkeys on the other. They belong in a zoo where we can stroll by and point our fingers at them while they are pointing their fingers at each other.

Americans, the bottom line is we deserve better. Much better. It’s time we walked out on them just as they did to us. We have a chance in this year’s election to send every single House incumbent and one third of the Senate home for dereliction of duty and abandoning their post. Yes, we may throw a few babies out with the bathwater, but the fact remains, what we have now is not working, and for sure they are not working while they had the stupidity to take a scheduled spring break when we needed them “on that wall’ right now.

I won’t forget this come November and I hope you don’t forget as well. Enough is enough, and as far as who is to blame? They all went home, all are equal in their dereliction of duty. Now you tell me who should not be getting paid!

Please let me know if, or how, we can get Congress back on the path of doing our work, not theirs. gregawtry@awtry.com