Shut down the shutdown 

Let’s be clear: Republicans control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. They own this shutdown. Rather than sitting down with Democrats to hammer out a responsible budget, they walked away. They chose political games over governing. And they did it while pushing through tax cuts for billionaires and corporations, stripping away health care protections, and attacking the very workers who keep this country running.

The human cost of their choices is staggering. Federal workers — our neighbors — are being locked out of their jobs. Up to 750,000 workers nationwide may be furloughed, and many others forced to work without pay. Custodians, cafeteria workers and contractors may never see back pay. Families whose kids want to plan their Halloween costumes are instead asking whether they can afford groceries or keep the lights on. And all of this comes on the heels of Republican efforts to strip more than 1 million federal employees of their bargaining rights, cancel nearly half a million union contracts, and push 300,000 workers out of their jobs this year alone. It is union-busting and worker-bashing on a scale we haven’t seen in decades.

Here in San Mateo County, the impact is immediate and personal. Nearly 40% of our county budget goes to health services — everything from the San Mateo Medical Center to public clinics and community health programs. When federal dollars dry up, those services are the first to feel the squeeze. Wait times lengthen, staff are cut back and preventive care falls by the wayside. At the same time, health care costs are already climbing. Across California, spending per patient rose by 7.1% in a single year. Without federal subsidies, local families will see premiums spike even higher.

And who suffers most? Low-wage workers, who are already barely keeping up with the region’s sky-high cost of living. In San Mateo County, nearly 43% of people earning $15 an hour or less live in households with children, and more than a third live just above the poverty line. For these families, a premium hike of $2,000 a year for a family of four — the reality if ACA tax credits vanish — could mean a full-blown crisis. Republicans know this. They are choosing to let it happen.

Democrats, on the other hand, are standing up for working families. They are refusing to rubber stamp a Republican plan that guts Medicaid, strips away Affordable Care Act subsidies and leaves the most vulnerable among us without care. They are insisting on a bipartisan budget that protects families, preserves health care access and keeps the federal workforce intact. That’s not obstruction — that’s governing with responsibility and compassion.

Republicans want us to believe this is about fiscal responsibility. But let’s look at the facts: Every week the government remains shut down, the U.S. economy loses $15 billion in GDP. A monthlong shutdown could add tens of thousands of people to unemployment rolls. That isn’t responsible budgeting — it’s deliberate sabotage of our economy and of working people’s lives.

This is not a partisan squabble where “both sides” share the blame. This shutdown is the direct result of Republican choices — choices to abandon workers, choices to dismantle health care and choices to put wealthy donors ahead of everyday Americans. Democrats are the ones holding the line to protect working families, veterans, seniors and the most vulnerable among us.

Every day this shutdown drags on, the costs mount. Not for the politicians in Washington who engineered it, but for families here in San Mateo County and across the country. That’s why it’s time to stop the games. End the shutdown. Restore paychecks. Protect health care. Start putting working families first.

Republicans have gotten us into this mess. Democrats are fighting to get us out of it. And working people deserve nothing less.

Julie Lind is the executive officer/executive secretary-treasurer, San Mateo Labor Council.