Happy about the government shutdown Last week a Trump supporter was interviewed on television and applauded the government shutdown. "I'm happy about the shutdown," the man said, "I want Trump to get government off my back."
But this same man, who was a veteran ... - went to college on the GI Bill,
- bought his house with an FHA loan,
- received health care from the VA,
- used electricity generated by the TVA,
- drank safe water thanks to an EPA monitoring program,
- had parents - who lived on a farm - who retired on Social Security and had their soil tested by USDA,
- was grateful that his mother - who was sick - was treated with an experimental drug developed by NIH,
- had children who participated in a school lunch program, were taught biology by teachers trained through a NSF grant and, when they graduated high school, were able to attend college on a student loan,
- drove to work on an Interstate Highway and moored his boat in a channel dredged by Army Corps of Engineers, and
- took his family on vacation to Washington DC traveling on Amtrak and, while there, visited the Smithsonian.
He told the reporter that he almost always voted Republican. He liked the GOP, he said, because they won't raise taxes to pay for all those government programs created for ungrateful people. |
Drown it in the bathtub " don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." -- Grover Norquist, founder, Americans for Tax Reform, interview on NPR's Morning Edition, May 25, 2001. |
Federal Government Facts
Aside from the Postal Service, the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) employ more than half of all federal employees. DOD and defense-related cabinet agencies (Army, Navy & Air Force) had 731,162 civilian employees. DHS had 188,844 employees, and VA had 368,109 employees - as of January 2016. DOD, DHS and VA also accounted for 94 percent of the growth between 2004 and 2012.A misconception of many is that most federal employees reside in Washington, DC. Rather, of the 2 million federal, non-postal employees, only 171,082 are located in Washington, DC. Only a total of 433,948, or about 21 percent, are in the Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia regions, according to March 2016 Fedscope data. Geographically, large contingents of federal employees are in California, with 8.19 percent of the total, and in Texas, with 7.14 percent. Source: NARFE, National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, January 2017. |
Nothing tips the scales of justice like passion |
| ChantAll for one, one for all.Stop the shutdown, stop the wall. -- Representative Jamie Raskin, D-Md. |
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