Help? In Texas for federal workers, what’s that?

Here we are in familiar territory. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. Deja vu all over again. I’ve seen this picture. Whatever cliché one wants to use or abuse, another government shutdown showdown rears its head like a missing Egyptian Cobra rearing its head in surrender in the Bronx Zoo.

How many times have we seen this place? Is this the third concurrent resolution coming to an end, the second? I know its more than one.

The issue is more than just will I be “furloughed” from my part-time job and be paid or not be paid after all the congressional hubris settles. Will a budget finally be passed so I can have my measly $204-attaboy tied up, supposedly because to the budget SNAFU. (For those of you who don’t know but always wondered: “Situation Normal, All F***ed Up.”)

On a whim, I called one of our Texas Workforce Commission Centers a few days ago where the wait to speak with a live person for one minute turned into about a five-minute wait. Still, I spoke with a very nice, Hispanic-sounding lady to whom I explained my circumstances and to whom I asked  whether I could receive unemployment benefits if we are furloughed.

Being the government, of course, it wasn’t something lending itself to a simple answer. Yet, the person with whom I spoke said it depended on whether I made money during a certain time period over the last couple of years.  It also depends on whether the state asks the federal government for money to pay the unemployment.

“Say what?”

I chuckled and said: “Good luck with that.”

The TWC lady laughed and said: “Yeah, no kidding.”

 (Note: This is where my computer fizzled out the other day)

Thus, if federal workers are furloughed if the government is shut down on the next budget stalemate, the odds of getting unemployment would be unlikely because the state government and our fine-haired governor will do nothing to rankle their radical right voters.

So if federal workers can’t pay bills, so what? Let them eat from garbage bins in the street. Been there, have been close to doing that.

We have some remarkable Christian leaders in this nation and in the state of Texas, don’t we? God help them. Someone sure needs to do so.