Posted on 01/12/2019 7:22:03 PM PST by 11th_VA
As the partial government shutdown stretches on with no clear end in sight, it’s affecting US embassy staff around the world — and making it harder for the US to conduct diplomacy abroad.
Many of the State Department’s roughly 75,000 employees — 50,000 are employed locally in US embassies abroad — have found trouble progressing with their work and even, in some cases, struggling to put food on the table while they wait for the White House and Congress to strike a deal. That’s a big problem, since the State Department is America’s leading foreign relations agency. It now means that American foreign policy is, at best, running on fumes.
The partial shutdown began in December, after President Donald Trump demanded around $5 billion for a border wall, a request Democrats have refused to comply with. The shutdown poses an optics problem for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is currently on a crucial trip to the Middle East to reassure allies that the US won’t fully withdraw from Syria. He and his wife — who has accompanied him to the region — will rely on the work of staff who aren’t getting paid to make the trip successful.
(Full disclosure: My wife works at the State Department.) ...
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Making it sound like “diplomacy” is something real.
Those 50,000 are loczl nationals and not normally US Citizens. There 15,000 foreign service officers and specialists, plus another 25,000 civil service personnel. BONUS if you you total up all foriegn service officers and specialists on phone directories and subtact 15,000 you get an idea that even 17,800 of them still leave too many undercover positions.
This story is as full of holes as it is of shit.
I’m on furlough as a govt contractor (using Paid Time Office; if I didn’t have any, which is what happened during one other shut-down, we had to survive on what we had, borrowed, or renegotiated).
I understand the person who lives day to day on their paycheck, but a little financial planning and learned “smarts” (TV and radio shows, in the newspapers), go a long way to helping.
However, diplomats and FSO’s get good pay (and earn it) but they sure earn a helluva lot more than I do (my then soldier son got $150 a month extra in hazardous duty pay while in combat in Iraq).
Helpful Hints:
Stop smoking. Period. At $5.00 a pack, you can save a lot a week. The same for drinking. DC is nothing but a fishbowl of alcoholics and people who have nothing else in their lives to do and turn to alcohol.
Stop eating out 24/7. Learn how to show frugally. You’ll survive, believe me. At one time I only had two meals a day, a bun and a hot dog/soda. Toughen up millenials. The world doesn’t owe you a damned thing.
If you hadn’t screwed up the Boy Scouts, you might have been one and learned to “Be Prepared”, or as the Coast Guard motto states, “Semper paradis”. (If you didn’t have Latin in school, it means, “Always prepared”.)
Religious organizations, charitable/civic organizations and even some local governments are helping, the first two always due anyway.
If you have Mortgage Equity, you can use it to cover needed costs. I’ve got a feeling that some banks and credit unions are willing to help out during this period. If they don’t or won’t, change to one who will.
Re the diplomat or employee who doesn’t want to give Trump one cent for the Wall, well, if you work in an embassy or other US facility overseas, “Take down your wall” AND SEE how long you will live.
Been overseas during two wars. I appreciate walls. So did my son who had to duke it out with an Iraqi sniper.
Walls save lives, American lives, esp. near the border with Mexico. They save lives by helping to stop some drug importation that kill our kids, friends and strangers.
How many more wasted lives are the liberals/Democrats willing to sacrifice (not their own kids, you know - they live behind walls or have armed security - our only armed security is ourselves)?
Another 22 year old police woman was assassinated the other day. Had only been on the force for a couple of weeks. Office Singh died by a illegal alien criminal with a gun (who had been deported at least twice).
I guess that Police lives don’t matter to anti-Trump psychopaths. Hope a couple of them have relatives who are killed by illegals. Maybe then they will get back a little humanity in terms of helping to keep others safe too.
Otherwise Libs, just keep filling those graves of your friends, neighbors, strangers, co-workers and military/law enforcement people, as if you give a damn.
When the going gets tough, real Americans pull together to help each other. In the Libs “America”, only libs get help.
As Bill Paxton nearly said in “Aliens”, “Stop your bitching and start pitching in”.
Does the State Department know that burning carbon based fuels pollute and add to global warming . Shut them down to save the planet.
Every one of these sob stories is like a shot of schadenfreude.
Keep them coming!
How muchb$$$ did clientele from the U.S. while SOS? Let them tap into the Clinton Foundation for their pay. Better yet, fire them.
Every gas pump, nationwide, that I have ever seen has a sticker that attests to local inspection, to prove actual vending accuracy. The feds need this, too?
One might almost presume an old Chicago stunt of padding payrolls with worthless relatives...
BS.
Democrat snowflakes AKA drama queens...
“I fart in your general direction”..............
Good, State Dept is a rogue agency
State Dept personnel, especially when overseas, do better financially than other government workers. Every State Dept retiree I know lives infinitely better than his/her peers from other depts. Probably because the cost of living overseas is more affordable on a US income, costs of living are subsidized, etc.. If they are broke in another country when they have missed now only one paycheck, it speaks to their poor personal money management.. This article is a self-serving crock of crap.
But, but, who will run the rainbow flags up the embassy flagpoles?
I estimate the US government manpower is 90% larger than it needs to be; it’s functionality another welfare program. There are many who do great work, but they are the core that is needed, the rest are bureaucrats making noise and moving paper around desktops.
I have to wonder if that ‘official’ was overseas behind a wall with Marines guarding the gate?
Maybe they’ll go native in those countries and become actors in a new reality TV series.
NIST, Now that we know a pound is a pound why do we need them anymore?
Are the salaries of the cabinet secretaries for the departments that are shut down funded by the departments? Or are they funded elsewhere and are people like Pompeo still getting paid?
Here is the problem; 75,000 US citizens getting paid 2-3 times the average wage, working by trying to give US tax dollars to furenors.
Why do we need this bloated payroll?
7,500 people should more than cover the State Dept. requirements.
The bureaucrats not getting paid is one thing, but the Leftist front groups they fund with Government grants not getting paid, could really hamper their agenda.
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.