Posted on 10/05/2013 4:54:31 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HOUSTON — Thanks to Texas' new senator, Dale Huls is out of a job - at least for now. Yet Huls has never been prouder that he voted for him.
"Without Ted Cruz this doesn't happen," said Huls, a NASA systems engineer who was among roughly 3,000 federal employees furloughed from Houston's Johnson Space Center after tea party Republicans triggered the partial government shutdown.
"This is something Americans have to get used to," said Huls. "Even if it affects your livelihood, you've got to stand up."
Perhaps more than anywhere else, Texas embodies the factors behind the shutdown: big government and the rebellion against it.
The state is one of the richest beneficiaries of federal spending, with its sprawling military bases, Gulf Coast seaports, and nearly 2,000-mile border with Mexico, which help account for more than 131,500 full-time federal employees. Only California, Virginia and the District of Columbia have more.
Yet Cruz's firebrand opposition to the nation's new entitlement program - the Affordable Care Act — and his campaign to stop government growth at all costs were also born here, and resonate deeply with many conservatives. In Houston, home to thousands of federal workers and to Cruz himself, the shutdown has brought the love/hate relationship with government into plain view.
Huls said he doesn't believe his job is a waste of money: "The public doesn't think much of federal workers these days, but we're people with car payments just like everyone else."
Still, he said of Cruz, "He's fighting for what he believes in and I'm taking a side."
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Good people, fear not, God will provide. Resist, endure persevere
They are ALL going to get paid anyway....they are just getting PAID TIME OFF!!
News flash WILL WEISSERT. Ted Cruz didn’t shut the selectedly painful parts of the federal government down. Barry and Harry did it.
This man is on paid vacation as are all of the federal employees that are out of work right now. Both dims and republicans are going to vote to pay them when this is over. mcconnell, boehner and reid have said so.
They hail him because they realize how much Obamacare will suck out of their wallets if he does go back to work. Speaking of that, a good friend of mine told me that her employer notified her that her insurance premiums will TRIPLE come January. She also told me that her taxes were higher last year than they ever had been despite her making less money. Same deal for me. The man is a complete liar in every way. When a man has to lie about being straight everyday to his own wife I guess its just standard operating protocol.
It’s amazing to me how much the government has grown and how many people the taxpayers have to support. None of this is constitutional, but I guess that doesn’t matter anymore.
if federal employee care about their long term future, they should care about the state of their bosses finance.
Methinks that the Minneapolis Star-Tribune cannot believe that Texans would believe in the US Constitution and limited government. Horrors, it must be Halloween time!
"........Pedro Rivera, a space center programs specialist who is working on the Orion capsule the U.S. hopes to send to Mars, said he too is willing to accept being furloughed even if the shutdown means a delay in Orion's scheduled test launch next year.
"I think it's a small price to pay for the future generations," said Rivera, who says he considers the new health care law un-American."........................
I’m a federal employee and I’m WORKING and not getting paid.
,,,and I WHOLEHEARTEDLY support Ted Cruz.
RLTW
I respect Dale Huls more than I can say.
Check back with this fellow in 6 weeks if he is still not getting a check, not that that will happen.
Note the subtle implication that Texas is prosperous because of government handouts.
1. Its hardly the reason that Texas is creating jobs and growing in spite of the Obama economy.
2. The Feds HAVE NO MONEY. Whatever is “given” to Texas has probably been TAKEN from Texas taxpayers. And military spending is one of the few things that are necessary for a free nation. Military bases and NASA, are a wee bit more important than Solyndra, turtle tunnels, PBS, robotic squirrels, and the welfare safety hammock.
IIRC Federal employees are paid once a month on the last day of the month. Everyone has promised that they will receive back pay when this is over, so unless this shutdown extends to after Halloween, no Federal employee will lose a dime.
Obama has ordered everyone to make this shutdown as painful as possible to the taxpayers, but this will probably have no effect at all on all these “poor” Government employees.
NO ONE in the federal service has missed a paycheck. Checks are sent the 15th and end of month, right?
Ditto. Exempt employee here and fully supporting the cause.
He address that possibility in the article and is prepared to hold out.
I'm sure that addition to the article title "_ even as they start missing paychecks" was an editorial decision by the paper.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.