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 ...
Military is 1st and 15th. Many civilian fed jobs are paid every two weeks.
No, not all of us will be repaid. I work At Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville as a contractor. I work on-base, as my company runs the entire calibration lab.
I am sitting at home burning my vacation time so that I don’t lose money. 99% sure that our salaries won’t be repaid after the government goes back to work. There are likely more contractors than civil servants at MSFC. All of us will lose pay.
I support Cruz and the efforts shut down Obamacare. And it is costing me, literally.
“Cruz supporters tend to make a distinction between government workers and government. The former can be worthwhile; the latter is taking on too much and must be pruned to its essential functions.”
This is a reasonably statement and a stance I wished the more extreme (anarchists actually - I said it long before the Dems started using it) elements here on FR that see all federal workers as “leech’s” or worse; regardless of their actual worth. That type of rhetoric gets really old...and for those that know better by REAL knowledge and EXPERIENCE, it is deeply offensive.
The concept that government needs to be pruned to its essential elements is reasonable and correct when uttered by rational persons that don’t have some “federal employee class envy.” The federal government and attendant burearacracy has grown entirely beyond what is required and become to pervasive in our great country - and “self sustaining structure without a real function except to exist.” Some functions are essential, but many are best phased out over time. However, this is also true at the State and Local level.
I am starting to view Ted Cruz himself as a “Revolutionary”, not and “Anarchist”....although “some” (no the majority) that flock to him are just anarchists. Then Senator himself is OK.
“I’m sure that addition to the article title “_ even as they start missing paychecks” was an editorial decision by the paper.”
Those employees that have been told to stay home, will not receive any paychecks until the shutdown ends. However, they will take up a Bill today in the House (already with the endorsement of Mr. Obama and Mr. Reid) that will guarantee “backpay” for all idled federal workers. All will eventually be paid....just delay in getting it.
GOD BLESS YOU, and tell your DEMOCRAT friends and relatives this is all about Obama’s POWER GRAB!
It is good to have these Americans speak up for Cruz and denounce Obamacare and intrusive government.
The union leaders quoted in the article don’t.
Government employees receive their pay every two weeks. Hence no one has missed a paycheck yet.
If they were paid 100% last Friday (Sep 27 -for pay period Sep 8-21), then the next pay on Oct 11 would only reflect 6 days of pay (vs 10 days).
If their payday was this Fri Oct 4...then they would have received a full 10 days of pay (reflecting pay period of Sep 16-29.
Perhaps there is fear of the uncertain future. But these headlines of missing paydays are misleading, perhaps to influence the publics' blame game.
I think that like the military they can opt for a monthly or a twice monthly paycheck but I’m not sure.
My sense is that Obama Inc. wants to make people mad at the GOP so he’ll do all he can to make everyone hurt that he can.
He’s an evil man. Fast and Furious and Benghazi prove that.
Yes, Texas is a net contributor to the federal budget:
Remember...this is the Minneapolis RED-Star-Tribune. Its slant is ultra-liberal. Most of the rag’s adherents and scribblers simply can’t believe that less government might be good government. For these statists, biggers and more oppressive government is ALWAYS!!! a good thing. In their minds it’s: “why don’t you want government to do this wonderful thing for you?” They are truly stunned when anybody for any reason resists government intervention in what should be a private matter.
Right. Pretty much everyone should still be due pay from the last pay period of Fiscal Year 13.
So anyone who is broke now would have been broke regardless of the shutdown.
Even exempts like me aren’t really working without pay. If the shutdown lasts longer than the date that we would have been paid for the first pay period of FY 14 (about 3 weeks from now) then we would have been working without pay. If it ends before then, we probably will be paid normally (provided that all timekeeping gets entered in time).
I was furloughed on Tuesday, as were all my division coworkers except for 7. During our close out, where we had 4 hours to submit reports, respond to emails, etc my bleeding heart coworkers could not wait to gloat in my face, so certain that I would at last “see the light” and be angry with my conservative leaders. Afterall, Texas is not an expansion state, and will be using the federal marketplace instead of setting up its own, like some of the more progressive states. So I’m supposed to be ashamed because my state is so stingy.
I let them know I welcome the shutdown. I’m tired of this man draining our funds while his family doesn’t have the two brain cells it takes to be discreet about their own spending. I’m not completely confident that we’ll get back pay, but if we don’t I’ll be fine, because I have funds and that’s what conservatives do, we don’t live beyond what we make and we save with the same conviction that we use to pay bills. And if I have to take my friend’s offer to do some seasonal work for her, I will because we also don’t whine about how life sucks and someone owes us.
In the meantime, let the marketplace roll, and let it fall on its chaotic ass. And may the libtard public finally see what a scam this all is.
BUMP!
nothing perplexes a lib more than a unselfish person acting in principle it absolutely drives them nuts
I say no back pay. How can the federal government be obligated to provide back pay?
That is the most sensible post I have read since this shutdown started. Thank you for saying what I have been thinking.
Love how Cruz gets blamed for everything.
This is hilarious. The press goes down to Texas to get people to bad-mouth their senator and they can’t even get federal employees to bad-mouth him! lol. The comments on The Minneapolis Leftist rag are priceless. They hate Texas with a passion because most in that city resent people who want to be free.
I noticed. What those dunces "think" reflects government education.
Obama 'built it'.
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