Yesterday, I took a Lyft from my place in Alexandria to Washington where union leaders representing federal workers held a press conference not far from the US Capitol.
Their message broadly speaking was that Congress needed to do its “damn job” and reopen the government and that President Donald Trump needed to back off his threat to withhold back pay from some federal workers.
There wasn’t a big crowd for these leaders, a group that included Sara Nelson, the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, who talked about how going without pay is hurting federal workers all across the country. And at one point it was raining cats and dogs.
But that didn’t deter them or dilute the intensity of their anger over what is happening to their members.
“Every American should be furious with the threats that this president is making to federal employees in this country,” said Randy Erwin, the national president of the National Federation of Federal Employees. “Congress, do your damn job!”
From Washington, I took another Lyft back home and then made the hour-long drive to Reston’s Elden Street Tea Shop, where US Rep. James Walkinshaw held a roundtable on the importance of the Affordable Care Act subsidies scheduled to expire at the end of the year.
Here again, the crowd was small, but the message was just as grave: without these subsidies, working people will be kicked off their health care plans.
As Walkinshaw put it: surely if we can make tax cuts for the rich permanent, then we can do the same just so working people can access health care.
One would hope. Unfortunately, the shutdown doesn’t seem like it will be ending anytime soon.
