How much do I know, to talk out of turn

Along with a lot of the country, I’ve been following this mess going on in Washington, D.C. concerning the government shutdown. I read about how it’s going to impact our daily lives, etc. I see on the news how we’ll still get our mail, but we won’t get our tax refunds and we can’t go visit a national park. Well let me tell you what’s going on in our house.

The Husband can’t go to work. As an employee of the 136th Airlift Wing of the Texas Air National Guard he is deemed non-essential. And if he’s not at work, he doesn’t get paid. We aren’t eligible for the promise of back-pay. And since I stay home with the boys, he’s the only person bringing money into this household. We were lucky enough to have already received our tax refund so as long as this shutdown doesn’t last too long (or happen at all), we might be okay. We don’t have a savings account. We were all set to start one a few months ago, but something else happened.

We had to file for bankruptcy. Yeah, it’s been something we’ve been keeping under wraps for a while. Mostly because we’ve been doing what we need to do to get to our future goals and we just didn’t feel the need to put our shit out there for everyone. But I’m pissed now, and the only way to explain it is to explain it all. When The Husband began to work in Fort Worth The Joey and I were still living in Hell (or Howe… whatever). We tried for a year and a half to sell the damn place and during that time the housing market tanked. At the end of that year of a half The Joey was having night terrors every night The Husband was gone, I was essentially a single parent and we were officially upside down on our home. It was a terrible time and the choice came down to either we do something to alleviate the stress on all three of us or I was going to do something about it on my own, i.e. relocating myself and my son to Houston… without The Husband. We just couldn’t take it anymore.

So we essentially let the house go into foreclosure. We knew we’d have to take a hit and there would be consequences we’d have to weather before we could buy again, and we assumed those risks. Then The Husband became a federal employee. Our home loan had been guaranteed by the USDA and a few months ago they came after us for the remainder of our home loan to the tune of $36K. And they added on another $10K for fees and fun. They were garnishing The Husband’s wages, about $500 a month. We were still paying on The Elliot’s week-long hospital stay for pneumonia, The Joey had just had pneumonia (yeah – I still don’t know how they both got it!) and had to go to the ER, but everything was manageable without The Husband’s wages being garnished. We had been saving, we had been living by an envelope budget (thanks, Steve Ramsey!) and things were pretty awesome. Not anymore.

Now with this shutdown looming over our heads I am just pissed. We play by the rules. We don’t live outside our means. We’re doing what we can to pay back our debt. We just want to move forward and create a good life for us and our children, with a house and a yard and good schools. And now not only are we giving the government our expendable income, not only does my husband serve our country every weekday and one weekend a month, now the government won’t pay him for his [albeit civil] service and we don’t have anything to fall back on because we give it all back to pay a government agency. And why? I really wanted to know and I kept seeing things on the news, reading them on Huffington Post and CNN, and hearing them on NPR.

"It looks like it's headed" toward a shutdown, Reid said on the Senate floor. "The numbers are basically there, but I am not as nearly as optimistic -- and that's an understatement -- as I was" on Wednesday night after a previous meeting with Obama and Boehner.

Reid said the differences between the two parties "are no longer on how much savings we will get on government spending." Instead, he insisted, the major obstacle at this point is Republicans' insistence on including provisions related to abortion and environmental protection.

Republicans are, among other things, pushing to strip all funding from Planned Parenthood as well as trying to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

In a statement Thursday, Planned Parenthood noted that "by law, no federal funding for Planned Parenthood goes toward abortion." Cutting its funding would harm Planned Parenthood programs that provide contraception, cancer screenings and help deal with sexually transmitted infections, the group said.

"A small group with an extreme political agenda is forcing a shutdown of the United States government over a dangerous proposal that would bar women from getting the lifesaving health care they need," said Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards.

-From CNN

So now I’m not only pissed about our financial situation and the possibility it’ll only get worse and we’ll never catch up and move our kids to a better school district, now I’m pissed because Republicans can’t keep themselves out of my vagina and uterus. AND they want to make toxic air acceptable for my children to breathe – a big topic here in Fort Worth due to the ongoing issues and unknowns concerning natural gas drilling.

I’m kind of torn. Do I support those refusing to back down on women’s and environmental rights, two things I feel extremely strongly about, or do I support having income to feed and shelter my children? The two should never have been entwined but now that they are there just doesn’t seem to be an answer.

I promise my next post will be happier.