Today, a lot of us are taking a slightly ragged breath and relaxing a bit. Last night, around 11PM, a deal was reached that would extend for a week the operations of government as we know it. This is particularly meaningful for all of our servicemembers, many serving in harm’s way, who had already opened up Mypay to reveal a LES with only half the pay anticipated for it. This will allow them to get their midmonth pay.
Let me stress, for those few who might happen to be unaware, that unlike the rest of the government, when the military isn’t getting paid, the military is still working. People don’t stop trying to kill them just because they’re not getting paid. Instead, it’s just another worry on their mind, preventing them from being fully focused on the dangers surrounding them, because they’re too busy wondering if their family will be able to pay the rent or buy groceries.
I’d like to take a moment to thank those organizations that went above and beyond in order to make sure servicemembers didn’t have to worry about where their family’s next meal would come from: such as the Navy Federal Credit Union, that promised all servicemember’s mid-month checks would be covered by the institution. I’d also like to thank (and this is rare) the VA (or as Brandon Friedman likes to remind everyone, Veterans Affairs) for putting out a Veterans Guide to the Shutdown, to help address the justified concerns many veterans had about whether their disability checks and education benefits would arrive on the 1st.
However, what really needs to be addressed is not so pretty: why did it come so close in the first place? A lot of people in both political parties want to blame the other party. But really, both parties are to blame, and both parties gambled way too much with the lives of people who have already given up a lot to serve their country.
The one bare-minimum standard any governmental body that deals with money has is to pass a budget for the next year. But nobody wanted to pass a budget before the elections, because then they’d have to deal with possible consequences for their votes. And after the elections, when Democrats realized that they were going to be out of power next year, they hurried with pushing through the healthcare reform, instead of worrying about doing their job and passing the budget.
But the Republicans aren’t off the hook yet. Passing a budget was their job, too, and they chose to focus on ideological battles also. They decided to play a game of brinksmanship to show how tough they were for the next budget fight, ignoring the people it was going to impact. They tried to create a temporary bill that supposedly would fund the Pentagon all year, and the rest of government a week, to save the military, but then again added ideological riders on it.
Why do we put up with this? People on both sides, why do we act as though our party protects veterans and servicemembers? I think we need to acknowledge that both sides use us for photo ops and for talking points on the halls of Congress, but when it comes down to it, they don’t really care.