Can you believe federal employees are facing another government shutdown on October 1? When did closing the government become an acceptable solution to balancing the budget? We all live within constraints of managing our spending, yet wouldn’t it seems strange if we all decided to just stop and close our accounts? Our lawmakers would rather place hundreds of thousands of federal employees out of work than do what they were elected to do — handling our nation’s business and pass a budget.

As it stands now, Congress needs to agree to funding the government by Sept. 30, but they are way behind in passing the series of spending bills necessary to pass a full budget. Instead, lawmakers will probably try to pass a short-term budget extension that basically keeps spending levels the same as last year and keeps the government open. In fact, the cost of shutting down the government far outweighs the cost of restarting the government or allowing feds to continue to work in order to keep this country moving forward.

Haven’t we learned yet that federal employees are vital to this country’s business, both domestic and international? Take a look at how “Federal workers keep America running.” While most of the economy will be impacted negatively by a government shutdown, in fact, we could never completely shut down the government. Some federal workers were considered “exempt” from shutting down due to the nature of their jobs and place on unpaid furlough. In the 2013 shutdown, about 800,000 of the 2.1 million non-postal Executive Branch employees were furloughed without pay. The rest continued working, some without pay, but guaranteed that eventually they would be paid. This is a disappointment and a disrespectful way of showing appreciation for federal workers.

FEW is requesting that all federal workers contact their Congressman now. It’s not too late to remind them to protect America by allowing federal workers to stay on the job. We should always have a contingency plan, but its purpose should be to keep America running 100% of the time.   Use FEW’s Capwiz site to contact your Congressional Representatives.