As the president and Congress played chicken over funding for a proposed wall at the U.S.-Mexico border at the end of the year, some local federal employees were out of work.
The stalemate between President Donald Trump and Democratic Party leaders led to a partial government shutdown in late December, with federal employees across the U.S. either furloughed or working with the promise of pay. The shutdown has reportedly affected employees at agencies like the IRS, State Department, National Parks Service, and others.
A federal staffer who spoke to the Sun on the condition that their name not be shared was unsure of all the agencies affected locally, but said that essential services where they worked were still maintained. Staffers whose work is deemed “nonessential,” however, weren’t working.
“That’s kind of where we’re all at,” they said. “Unless you’re at the top of the food chain or you’re involved in emergency response, you’re at home.”
A request for comment to the 30th Space Wing Public Affairs at Vandenberg Air Force Base was referred to the Department of Defense, which offered no comment and referred the Sun to the Air Force’s press contact at the Pentagon. Calls to that number went unanswered as of the Sun‘s Dec. 31 press time.
President Trump continued to blame Congressional Democrats on Dec. 31, posting to Twitter to demand funding for the wall. Just ahead of the vote that decided the shutdown, local U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) issued a statement on Dec. 21, saying the “lame duck House Republicans” were to blame for “an ineffective border wall leading us straight toward a partial government shutdown.”
“The president’s senseless border wall is nothing more than an archaic solution to a 21st century problem and fails to meet our security needs at the border,” Carbajal stated. “I voted against wasteful spending for the wall and remain hopeful that Congress and the president can work together on a bipartisan basis to bring forward a clean spending bill to fund the government responsibly.”
This article appears in Jan 3-10, 2019.