Letters | Reichert needs to decide where he stands on shutdown

I seldom post my political feelings publicly, but in the last few days I’ve witnessed a truly remarkable situation in the U.S. House of Representatives, where a minority splinter of the representatives are working to block the “clean” continuing resolution to fund the nation’s budget. After losing the election to control the Senate, after losing the presidency (again) to Mr. Obama, and even after losing seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, a tiny few are working to block the normal operation of the federal budget by demanding an extra-legislative action to repeal a duly enacted law, a law affirmed by the Supreme Court.

October 8, 2013 3:39 pm

I seldom post my political feelings publicly, but in the last few days I’ve witnessed a truly remarkable situation in the U.S. House of Representatives, where a minority splinter of the representatives are working to block the “clean” continuing resolution to fund the nation’s budget. After losing the election to control the Senate, after losing the presidency (again) to Mr. Obama, and even after losing seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, a tiny few are working to block the normal operation of the federal budget by demanding an extra-legislative action to repeal a duly enacted law, a law affirmed by the Supreme Court.

I get it that some Republicans are mad they lost in 2012, but the way we work in America is that we accept the results of an election and move on.

Now we are stuck in a huge mess where 800,000 federal employees are without pay. Several of my friends working for the U.S. government in overseas missions, for example, cannot pay their rent because the U.S. government, of the richest country in the world, will not issue paychecks due to the government shutdown. Several of my friends in research institutes and universities are having their research blocked and their funding blocked. Idling them means that starting up again will engender costs that are simply ridiculous—there is no need for them to shut down.

In the next few days the Gulf Coast is expecting landfall of a hurricane. FEMA is closed. Bus accidents and airplane accidents can’t get government investigations because of the government shutdown.

I’ve contacted our U.S. Representative, Dave Reichert, who has a carefully worded statement on his website that he wants to resolve the issue. And just today, The New York Times quoted him as asking the Republican leadership if they were going to stop their foolishness.

So I’m asking the honorable representative to tell us, publicly, what he is going to do. Are you going to vote to release the “clean” continuing resolution, or are you going to side with the de facto Speaker of the House, Ted Cruz?

Stephen Matlock

North Bend