US federal workers have described their state of uncertainty: many are now on unpaid leave from the closing of the government and one note that their salary was a “hostage”.
Workers who are considered important can still be on duty or on their tables, but they also cannot be paid while the stop lasts.
Closing a government is a familiar situation in the United States, and can happen whenever Congress cannot vote behind the annual budget. This began on Wednesday, and this impasse is characterized by partisan disputes about federal expenses and democratic requirements to expand tax benefits for healthcare.
What distinguishes this shutdown is that President Donald Trump hopes to use the opportunity to constant reduce state personnel and expenses.
BBC News spoke with federal workers about their views and how the shutdown influenced them.
Although most comments are anonymous below, we confirmed that the speakers are federal workers. The US government, as a rule, is prohibited from talking to the media, and we defended the identity of the speakers, because they may encounter disciplinary sanctions if they are named.
“The last closure was cruel,” said one federal worker, who emphasized that the dead end in 2018-19 lasted more than a month.
He added: “It made me withdraw money from my pension plan to just cover my accounts. Now they make it difficult to withdraw from our pension accounts, therefore, if this is coming until the last closure, I don’t know how I am going to pay my bills. ”
The same worker said: “I voted for Trump, but I did not vote for his abuses against us.”
Another employee for the Ministry of Internal Security, based in New Jersey, took a slightly different point of view: “Despite the work without timely payment, I support the stop.”
He explained: “The president’s environment about the power of the Congress wallet remained an uncontrolled supreme court. Checks and residues must observe. ”
Meanwhile, an employee of the army engineering corps said that it “rather conflicts” and did not object to a break from the “exhausting end of the financial year – a year full of constantly changing leadership and constant threat” of mass dismissal.
She said that “they would support the closure, if something productive, but I'm not sure that something will happen.”
Randall from Kansas -City, who works with the Aviation weather center, said: “I do not like it when my filling is laid down, while the government is fighting on individual issues.”
He said that he believes that the maintenance of the funded national weather service was something, that both parties usually agreed, so he asked why he “is faced with a sudden loss of funds because Congress was fighting for healthcare or something else.” He emphasized that these were his personal views, and not the views of his agency.
The anonymous US Air Force officer told us that if the situation is not resolved, he will have nothing to live. He expressed his dilemma as follows: “I still have to appear to work, but I will not receive payment, because, if I do not consider, this is considered self -government.”
An employee in the Ministry of Treasury had a message for a party opposing the expenses of the Republican Party Trump.
“I strongly beg the democrats to stand firmly, and not in a constant attack on healthcare and accessibility for daily Americans,” she said. She added that no threat to her work would make her hesitate in her eyes.
