mickeym

I finally heard back from Doug (quelle surprise, he emailed me this morning). He said his employer's contract is funded through August, and his paycheck shouldn't stop. I'm cautiously optimistic about that.

I've been watching some of the video feeds, and reading all the blogs and updates on CNN.com, and it's a sad, sad day when grade school children can act more mature and responsible than those we elected to represent us.

I've emailed all my elected officials. If you're interested in emailing yours, and don't know where to find them, you can go to the US Senate website. Plug in your state information, and it'll tell you who you can contact.

This is the text of the message I sent:

Senator___________,

I am writing to you to convey my absolute disgust and disappointment with all Congress persons regarding the impending government shutdown, as related to budget issues.

I don't care at this point who started it, whose fault it may or may not be, or who is keeping it from passing. FIX IT. Every single one of you -- all people we, the public, elected to represent us and work for us -- is acting as selfish and immature as a kindergarten-aged child.

At the very least, if you won't work at settling it quickly, I feel the honorable, the *right*, thing to do would be to waive your salaries for as long as other government employees are going unpaid. None of you are any more important than the hundreds of thousands who have been deemed "non-essential personnel".

As I said above, I don't care 'who started it'. I don't care about party affiliations, and who's done what for whom in the past. Just fix this situation before it gets any worse than it already is.

Thank you,

(my name)

And if you're interested in what's likely to be affected, you can go here: Government Shutdown list.