Please, I beseech you all, work toward ending this pointless federal government shutdown. Please put pressure on McConnell and the White House. He, along with Trump, are destroying our financial and operational stability. This needs to end.
Not only are our parks, monuments, and treasured locations in disarray and a huge mess, but we, your constituents, are seeing our families and friends suffer who are federal government workers.
Also, there are the military families going without pay, all the federal workers on furlough, and eventually, if this keeps up, those of us that rely on the SNAP (Food Stamp) program to make ends meet to feed our children, WIC participants that need their assistance to properly nourish our babies and children. Those of us on housing assistance, and energy assistance; the lists are endless.
People are already suffering and many more will start to feel the effects as this crisis exponentially increases if it is allowed to continue to lag on. Those of us that rely on our income tax returns to pay local property taxes will be in danger of fines and tax liens come the end of February. Some of us count on those refunds to pay our city and county taxes.
I totally agree that we need immigration reform. But, we need sensible reform. A temper tantrum, basically holding all U.S. citizens hostage, is not the way to get results. A wall, concrete, steel, whatever, by all true, verifiable facts and statistics, is not a necessity and would be a total waste of our $5.7 billion. It will not work.
Please, your brothers and sisters in your state, that you represent are hurting. Please, do your jobs. You were elected to represent us. You were not elected to lose your conscience and morals that you campaigned on. Please end this mess for all of us.
Richard and Thomas Hendricks Smith
Lookout Valley