Tag Archives: Government shutdown

1. 800,000 federal employees will go without pay — and it’s unclear if they’ll receive back pay for time missed.

2. 3.6 million veterans may not receive benefits if the shutdown lasts over two weeks.

3. The Centers for Disease Control will have to stop its flu prevention program, just as flu season begins.

4. Food safety inspections will scale back their work, exposing millions to risk.

5. About nine million moms and pregnant women will no longer receive nutritional assistance from the Department of Agriculture’s Women, Infants, and Children program.

6. The Small Business Administration will be unable to process new loans, potentially slowing new small business growth.

7. National parks and museums will close across the country, damaging our travel and tourism industries by millions for each day the government remains shut down. (Yes, that means the Statue of Liberty is closed for business…)

8. Head Start programs across the country will start closing, ending educational and health benefits for low-income children.

9. Disability benefits could be interrupted, leaving vulnerable Americans without the support they rely on.

For more info, you can read the full article here:

http://my.barackobama.com/9-Facts-On-Government-Shutdown

Some House Republicans might be treating this showdown like a game — but its impacts are real for millions of Americans who are starting to feel the shutdown in their lives.

Help get the word out — forward this email, and share the impacts of a government shutdown with everyone who should know:

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Help the EPA … Stop the shutdown

10/04/2013 Nativegrl77

Want to know who some of the biggest victims of the government shutdown are? The agencies that protect our environment, including the EPA!

Tell Congress to end the shutdown!

In addition to costing hundreds of thousands of people their jobs, the shutdown has prevented key agencies from serving the American people. The EPA is one of the hardest-hit. The agency has basically been shut down, and 94% of its employees have been sent home.

Employees who “ensure continued public health and safety, including safe use of food and drugs and safe us of hazardous materials” have been sent home. Workers who protect federal lands and research properties have been sent home, as have employees who provide disaster and emergency aid. 505 Superfund cleanup sites in 47 states have been closed. And staff who write and implement greenhouse gas regulations can no longer come to work.

Tell Congress to end the shutdown and let the EPA get back to work protecting our environment.

It gets worse. The national parks are closed to visitors, but open to oil and gas drilling. Just a few employees will stick around to monitor the drilling activities. The Forest Service had to cut its staff, too, right in the middle of peak forest fire season.

Meanwhile, the threats to our environment will not rest. We simply can’t afford to let this happen—there’s too much at stake. Tell Congress to end the shutdown immediately!

-The Earth Day Network Team

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Dumb And Dumber

09/19/2013 Nativegrl77

By CAP Action War Room

The federal government is hurtling toward two critical deadlines where a failure to act will be extraordinarily damaging to the US economy. But Republicans think it’s okay to play political games even if it means sabotaging our economy.

Deadline 1: To avoid government shutdown, Congress needs to pass a spending bill to fund the federal government by September 30. Republicans have been engaged in a civil war for weeks over how best to use this deadline to manufacture a crisis. Those on the far right, led by Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, insist they shut down the government unless the budget fully defunds Obamacare, even touring the country to promote a shutdown. And now there are reports that House Republican leadership is following their lead in allowing such a bill to come to a vote.

The consequences of a government shutdown are severe: social security checks might not go out, our troops might not get paid, and the economy would take a huge hit. Indeed, some fearful Republicans have warned their constituents as much.

A majority of Americans will blame Republicans if the government shuts down. But Republicans are still unable to let go of their obsession with repealing Obamacare, and are now barreling towards shutdown. That’s just dumb.

Deadline 2: The U.S. government will default on its obligations sometime in mid-to-late October unless Congress extends its borrowing limit. This would have catastrophic consequences for not just the United States economy; it could cause a worldwide crash even worse than we faced in 2008. But House Republican leadership — that’s right, not just some of their crazier members — want to use the debt limit to force Congress to delay Obamacare for one year. Speaker John Boehner, who previously insisted he would not use the debt ceiling for political leverage, has promised “a whale of a fight.”

We’ve been down this road before. Paying our bills on time is non-negotiable. Congress needs to pay the bills Congress itself racked up. Period.

Even among those that oppose the health care law, more than half want their elected officials to make it work as well as possible. So if Republicans truly think the American people support their threats of default instead of doing the hard work of governing, well…that’s dumber.

BOTTOM LINE: Americans are tired of the fighting and of having their economic security put on the line time and time again. Harming the economy to refight old political battles won’t help middle class families.

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Don’t Be Fooled

09/11/2013 Nativegrl77

By CAP Action War Room

**Republicans Try to Force Even More Budget Cuts**

The government will shut down in 20 days – just nine congressional work days — unless Congress passes a bill to keep funding it. And while most of the media focus has been on the GOP’s unceasing effort to defund, delay, and undermine Obamacare, Speaker Boehner (R-OH) is plotting another, more hidden plan to lock in damaging and unnecessary austerity for the rest of the year and possibly into 2014.

Boehner has promised that to avoid a government shutdown, he will ask the House to pass a “clean” short-term budget resolution, simply extending current spending levels while a longer-term deal is worked out. That may sound reasonable, but hidden behind Boehner’s deceptive claims are some pretty dirty truths.

First of all, current spending levels are already painfully and unnecessarily low, but Boehner’s plan would go even further and lock in another round of deep cuts to domestic spending.

But it doesn’t stop there. Boehner’s plan actually increases defense spending by $20 BILLION compared to the sequester, while leaving spending on non-defense discretionary programs at unacceptably low levels.

You don’t have to take our word for it. Here’s Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) crowing about the cuts they are trying to force on Democrats and the president:

“In signing a CR at sequester levels,” Cantor wrote, “the president would be endorsing a level of spending that wipes away all the increases he and congressional Democrats made while they were in charge and returns us to a pre-2008 level of discretionary spending.”

Wait, there’s more! On top of all of this, House Republican leaders have devised a convoluted scheme to try and trick rank-and-file Republicans into not shutting down the government over Obamacare while still being able to somehow claim they defunded the law. This “smoke and mirrors” plan is already being derided by the Tea Party and recent polling found that just 6 percent of voters think delaying and defunding Obamacare is the right path forward.

(This final scheme comes on top of a separate GOP demand issued today that Democrats either agree to delay Obamacare for a year or Republicans will refuse to increase the debt ceiling, thus creating a world economic calamity.)

BOTTOM LINE: Republicans have scheduled just 9 days of work in September and aren’t even planning on being here the week before funding for the government runs out. Passing a partisan spending plan with only GOP votes is just another waste of time that makes it more likely that the government will shut down because of GOP intransigence, demands for damaging austerity, or both.

For a detailed brief from the Center for American Progress on how all of this adds up — or doesn’t — click HERE.

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a message from Gov.Jay Inslee

07/31/2013 Nativegrl77

In just 12 hours, we’re closing the books on our first major fundraising deadline since the end of the legislative session — and I’d love to hear from you to make sure we reach our $10,000 goal.

Our work doesn’t stop when the campaign is over. The grassroots community and momentum we built during my campaign for governor were critical components in our successful efforts to expand Medicaid, increase education funding, and defend against the attacks on critical services for our most vulnerable neighbors.

Our opponents will not give up and we have to be ready.

Click here to contribute $5, $10, or more before tonight’s midnight deadline — and help us reach our $10,000 goal and keep our movement fighting strong!

Thank you so much for everything that you do to help us build a working Washington.

Very truly yours,

Jay Inslee Governor