The shutdown is impacting hundreds of thousands of workers and no doubt each of those families is hurting. But imagine a husband and wife both federal employees. This was sent to us by a man who wants to remain anonymous. He is a 40-year-old, who works for the Department of Justice. His wife is a 37-year-old who works for the Department of Defense. They have two young children. Here is their story:

“I am not one to usually do this, but reading all of the rhetoric coming out of the White House in regards to federal employees, and the OPM (United States Office of Personnel Management) guide to federal employees on how to manage our payments has me upset, mad, incredulous about what has happened to the country I have loved since moving here 28 years ago (I am a naturalized citizen).

“I am a federal employee, one of the thousands without a paycheck, that has to go to work every day and get nothing for it. My wife is a federal employee as well, and right now times are bleak for us. How did we come to this? How did we come to a White House that does not understand how the real world works? How did we get to a Congress where they avoid the truth and only see what is good for their pockets and their party? I am not a Republican or Democrat, I am what I fondly call a centrist, but those don’t exist anymore!! Those days of people compromising, having honest, open discourse and engaging in honest compromise are long gone!

“As the new year starts I don’t know if I will be able to continue providing food and shelter for my 5-year-old and my 4-month-old. I don’t know if I can keep paying for the car my wife uses to take the kids to daycare and to go to work, because she has to or won’t be paid either!

We don’t live beyond our means, we don’t take vacations, heck I haven’t had time off in over 2 years!!! But for some reason, the White House and Congress feel like the federal employees are a great bargaining chip and can handle it! On top of not getting paid we also had our raises stopped!! This is not about Republican or Democrat, this is about hard working Americans that want to serve their country, one which I adopted 28 years ago as previously mentioned, and even though we make less money working a federal job, we do it because it’s in us to help! This is about people not being able to pay their bills, not because we don’t want to work, but because our government DOESN’T work!! Our government is at a standstill and the White House exacerbates the issue!!! Our politicians get paid every day, we don’t, they get free airplane rides, housing allowances etc… we just want to be paid what we are working for.”