Citizens unnecessarily annoyed during government shutdown
Posted By RichC on October 3, 2013
Although I’m not a big fan of the “goings on” in Washington DC, particularly the current government shutdown … but I’m really frustrated to see political elements doing their darnedest to make it even more uncomfortable for everyone.
Most news watchers are aware of the brouhaha over the WW2 Memorial this past Wednesday, where World War II veterans showing up on Honor Flights were barricaded from and turned away from walking or rolling around the outdoor memorial built in their honor (link)… thankfully there were enough ornery vets who chose not to be treated as a political tool. Way to go “heroes.”
The same is happening even when the federal government has very limited control over the functioning of a privately funded and preserved properties like our first president’s home at Mount Vernon. According to reports, the federal government placed barricades preventing access even though their only “shared” responsibility was maintaining some of the parking areas. Irritated volunteers pointed out that there were more federal employees putting up barricades and turning away visitors than show up regularly, unless a paving project is underway (there aren’t any at this time). It’s not that hard to conclude politics are being played by purposely irritating the public over shutting down much of the federal government.
I was a bit frustrated with the unnecessary “take down” of government websites. Take the many government websites which provide relatively static information 365 days each year … is there really a reason to put up a “closed for business” single page rather than the normal information? I tried to get some basic consumer FTC.gov information last night and was greeted with a shutdown page. Same on the FCC site when trying to look up my FRN number for amateur radio testing. Where is the commonsense when it comes to how to provide minimal services while dealing with this unfortunate shutdown.
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