A false economy
Huh, guess who is “required” to work without pay during the government shutdown. (I put scare quotes on “required” because that’s slavery and as Katha Pollitt pointed out on Twitter the other day, slavery is a violation of the 13th Amendment.) The Secret Service, that’s who.
Secret Service agents are growing increasingly anxious and angry about the shutdown, according to several current and former agents. The Secret Service protects 42 people associated with the Trump White House, 11 more than were given details during the Obama administration. In August 2017, the agency’s new director, Randolph D. Alles, told an interviewer that the sprawling Trump entourage was putting unprecedented strains on his agents, in terms of staffing and budgeting.
Now add just plain not getting paid to that, and imagine how you would feel.
“They are asking you to put your life on the line and not paying you — it’s ridiculous,” said Donald Mihalek, 49, a 20-year Secret Service veteran whose own retirement paperwork has yet to be processed because of the shutdown.
The motivation to put your life on the line for Trump or his greedy children or his “I really don’t care” wife must get very feeble in those conditions.
“Morale is a serious issue,” said Mr. Mihalek, who served on the presidential detail during George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s administrations. “This is an incredibly stressful job that requires your full attention, and if you are standing there thinking about your mortgage, or your credit card bills, or the fact that you are burning through your savings, you are distracted, you not able to give 100 percent.”
Plus you feel less like it anyway.
Maybe this will pressure Trump to bend on the Wall nonsense and end the shutdown. Poor people don’t have food? Oh, well. Government workers can’t pay their rent? Meh. Secret Service can’t concentrate on protecting the President and his family?
“I never said I had to have a Wall. Never said that.”
New Secret Service director being shrewd, perhaps. Or someone else.
So if working without pay is slavery, what would taking a bullet for someone, without pay, be classified as?
YNNB, I would classify that as murder. I doubt Trump would, if he was the one someone took the bullet for.
Can you imagine anyone actually wanting to take a bullet for Trump? I cannot imagine very many people I would think could be spared before he could…
Right now I’d say plenty of people would take a bullet for Trump; take it to someone who’d deliver it to him at high velocity.
Note; I’m not advocating assassination, just guessing at the mood among those hit hardest by his obstinacy.