Essential

Yesterday’s post was supposed to be a photo journey through my immense Works in Progress collection. But at the end of the day, I just couldn’t. I spent the day getting angrier and angrier about the impending Federal Government shutdown. Anger interspersed with worry about my job.

Do I work for the Federal Government? No. But I do work for the DC Government and that means I’m affected too. Why? DC is the only city that has its budget controlled by the Federal Government. And when the Federal Government shuts down only services that are “essential to the protection of public safety, health and property” in the District are allowed to continue.

Last week Mayor Gray made the admittedly baller move of sending a very short letter to the Office of Personal Management, declaring that ALL city employees are essential and that the DC Government would continue to operate in the face of a federal shutdown.

To do so, the Mayor and City Council plan on paying DC employees with the city’s rainy day fund. It’ll be drained in two weeks and if this mess isn’t figured out by then, I may be furloughed or paid in IOUs like the essential federal employees. The rainy day fund may be replenished or it may not be. No one knows.

It’s not about whether or not my job is important (it is), valuable (yes, 100%) or even essential to the protection of public safety, health and property in the District (I’m willing to entertain arguments). It’s about the fact that our Mayor and City Council had to make that claim in the first place.

DC has had a balanced budget (with a budget surplus!) for 18 years and yet our Mayor and City Council aren’t allowed to spend that money, our money, without congressional oversight.

And that’s some bullshit.

The last time the Federal Government was on the brink of shutdown, in 2011, President Obama prevented it by revoking DC’s residents right to use Medicaid to help fund abortions. “John, I’ll give you DC abortion, I’m not happy about it” is what Obama said to John Boehner. You know who else wasn’t happy about it? The some fifty-odd women who had been scheduled for the procedure who suddenly couldn’t afford it. And the countless women in the past 2 years who have had to turn to other means. There was no body there to declare these women essential.

Regardless of how you feel about a woman’s right to reproductive determination, this is about people in power using a vulnerable and disenfranchised population’s access to healthcare as a political bargaining chip. No one deserves that.

Just like DC workers don’t deserve to be kept on the edge of their seats, not knowing if they’ll be out of a job or being paid in IOUs at the end of two weeks. Just like the DC Government shouldn’t have to drain their emergency fund to pay its workers.

For those of you with representation in the House and Senate, do something about it. Call your representative (they’re still at work, even if their staffers aren’t). Tell them that statehood is essential for DC.