Rep. Larsen says ending shutdown comes before other issues

MARYSVILLE, WA — Federal employees not getting paid, border security and President Donald Trump, himself, were at the center of a town hall discussion Sunday hosted by Rep. Rick Larsen.

About 40 people took part in the nearly two-hour question-and-answer session and talk at the Marysville Family YMCA. Larsen, a 10-term Democratic congressman, was home from D.C. during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. He spent the past week touring the 2nd Congressional District, which stretches from Mountlake Terrace to Bellingham and the San Juan Islands to Arlington, to hear stories about the effect of federal government shutdown.

What’s happening to people, an estimated 800,000 of whom aren’t receiving paychecks, is something more concrete than the wall that Trump wants funded, Larsen said. Missed mortgages, reliance on food banks and other financial burdens are mounting stresses for federal employees.

“Building a wall is not the answer,” he said.

At the start of the meeting, he gave a couple of anecdotes, including one about a woman who was awaiting the approval of U.S. Department of Agriculture rural development housing loans before she could get her home.

A man who said he was retired from the Forest Service worried that federal employees missing paychecks would create an environment ripe for bribes or at least the appearance of bribery when they accepted financial assistance from friends or anyone who was not their employer.

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/rep-larsen-says-ending-shutdown-comes-before-other-issues/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=eecbf18006-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-eecbf18006-228635337

An official who's easy to bribe is probably what Trump, the Republicans and the Koch bros. want.