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Democrats introduce bill to help federal workers cover childcare costs during shutdown
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2025
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...why do they need child care if they are not at work?
I mean, fuck trump, and fuck the entire GOP, and fuck America's neglect of childcare and the inherently misogynistic implications of everything that entails.
But this is like that old joke about the blind firefighters playing golf....
(A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, “What’s with those guys? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes.” The doctor chimed in, “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen such inept golf.” The priest said, “Here comes the greenkeeper. Let’s have a word with him.”
The priest said, “Hello George, what’s wrong with the group ahead of us? They’re rather slow, aren’t they?.” The greenkeeper replied, “Oh yes, thats a group of blind firemen. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year so we always let them play for free at any time.”
The group fell silent for a moment. The priest said, “That’s so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.,” The doctor said, “Good idea. I’m gonna contact my optomologist colleague and see if there’s anything he can do for them.” The engineer said, “Why can’t they play at night?”)
There are many federal employees that are required to come to work even if they're not getting paid - for example, air traffic control. They still need to pay for childcare even without any money coming in.
At which point the air traffic controllers should simply say “if you’re not paying us, we’re not working”. If they’re so damn important then oopsie, I guess they better be paid.
Every time they have a law like that, or a return to work order during a strike, or whatever else, it means they’re scared that it’s working.
Reagan made sure that'll never happen.
Ya know, at this point I’d like to see what they could even do if all air traffic controllers walked off. Like, there’s a point where it doesn’t matter what they threaten, they cannot afford to even punish them. Airlines and air shipping would freak the fuck out and the replacements would take forever to train abd would, after something like that, be almost entirely made up of desperate people who(in a way I wouldn’t really blame them, even) would probably not even be that good at their new jobs.
People need to figure out that they have power together. This “that would never work” reflex that people in the US and Canada have is so fucking lame.
I 100% agree with you. They'd probably threaten to arrest them all and then as a last resort, bring in the military to run it, just guessing on that. No idea if the military has the capacity to even meet 10% of the need for ATC.
But yeah, the people need to work together if we ever want change in this country, but if my experiences in life have taught me anything, it's that when the chips are down, people tend to turn on each other rather than work together. That's what I'm seeing play out in this country right now.
I just don't get it. I feel like I'm at such diametric odds with most of the people I encounter on a day to day basis that I don't see how that ideological gap can be bridged. It's really gotten bad.
It’s really crazy. I hate being the smartest/among the smartest people in so many of the rooms I’m in because I don’t think I’m smart enough for that to be ok. I don’t think I’m stupid, not at all, but holy shit. I know way too many people who can’t figure out basic shit, who struggle with such simple concepts. I also know a bunch of people I can actually trust and would even but above me, but woof.
But yea, I’m getting so tired of people running on monkey brain like we’re still running around naked in Africa fighting other groups for the chance to eat a gazelle we found. We have smartphones and yet most of us are so stupid that even university education(passing courses and getting a degree) and having facts at our fingertips can’t help us.
A lot of daycares won't keep your spot if you don't continue to pay. So it would be a gamble whether or not they have a spot for when you DO go back to work. Since they don't have their normal income, then it might be hard to keep it up.
You still have to pay for daycare even if your kid does not go to keep your spot. And you have to keep your spot otherwise you are mega fucked when you go back to work.
In some areas getting childcare is a 6 months to a year process. My wife had twins and childcare completely destroyed her career. You think getting childcare for one baby is hard, try 2.
Government employees are still going to work even though they're not getting paid, this bill is to help cover child care expenses that the gov employees are still accruing. And is your comment ai slop? Because your "joke" doesn't make any sense in the context of the article.