By Sally Yozell
As I sit in my office in Washington, DC, all around me American workers, people, are losing their jobs, their lifelines. Real estate values in the Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) areas are crashing, families and citizens with home mortgages, school loans, health care needs, are being tossed aside with no recourse or care for their welfare. No orderly process exists and chaos reigns. Often both parents or worse, single-parent families with children, or aging parents are losing their employment with no time to plan and no specific reason offered other than they chose to serve America.
Young people who recently joined the government have been the first to go, stifling future innovation across federal agencies. Looking back to 2001 the Clinton administration downsized the federal government by about 400,000 employees and produced a balanced federal budget, the first in decades and the last we’ve seen in 25 years. The process, called "reinventing government" was run by Vice President Al Gore, took a couple of years to implement and included thoughtful analysis and assessment. Through this informed approach, programs were eliminated, downsized, and made more efficient, employees who were let go saw a fair process.
For the past month government staff have been bombarded by emails from Elon Musk and the Office of Personnel Management pushing them to quit or be fired. They are harassed daily with confusing instructions, threats, and non-stop pressure consistent with psychological warfare. The current administration's hatchet job to employees is simply cruel and the wrecking ball approach to the government programs lacks thought and understanding for the long- and even short-term effects that you and I will feel soon in our daily lives.
Think about the wait-time today at the Social Security Administration, get ready with a good book and comfy chair. Do you need to renew your passport, plan that trip a year out – is there a sudden disease plaguing your crops, hope the rainy day fund is enough to hire a private scientist. Who will fix the roads when the river floods, federal highway funds may trickle down at some point. Do you rely on a daily or weekly weather forecast for your business or recreation, when it’s privatized rural communities may not have enough people to justify service (think about the drug store). How safe is the food you purchase and eat, spin the roulette wheel and you’ll find out. Is that cod fish labelled “U.S. wild caught” really from the Cape, or is it a frozen filet from a Russian trawler.
For those of us who are compassionate, we recognize these are not "faceless bureaucrats" being axed, but dedicated American workers with families and responsibilities who chose to be invisible as they support the day-to-day services, we too often take for granted.
There has been a lot of chatter regarding the Vice President coming to The Valley. The big question is how to respond, – is it a moment for The Valley to show the best face to a family just wanting a nice weekend vacation? Or when he signed up for the number two slot did Mr. Vance forfeit his time as a private citizen. The beauty of America is that Valley residents can do as they choose, – protest or not; it's their right to assemble. But to be honest welcoming the VP to a luxury, government-funded weekend retreat seems a bit tone deaf at a time when tens of thousands of dedicated, hard-working American citizens with families, are summarily being kicked to the curb
Sally Yozell, Warren,VT.
