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Out of touch on the shutdown

In response to a letter written by Mr. Westfall on Feb. 3, in regard to his “Building wall worth sacrifices,” it seems he is uninformed about reality in regard to those 800,000 federal workers. Most are close to retirement and have been at their jobs for years, and most do have savings that were used only in emergencies.

Those savings can go quick and it will take more time to build back up without a paycheck.

There were those like this young couple whose infant is on oxygen and they rely on that paycheck to keep the electric on so their infant can survive. There are many who serve in the military whose families rely on that paycheck to pay mortgage payments, utility bills and buy groceries.

Mr. Westfall failed to understand that, yeah, there are some who are college educated, but the majority of those so-called “college-educated Americans” as he likes to say have student loans that need to be paid each month.

Yeah, sure, they can always apply for forbearance, but there’s the catch, interest will be added to that loan and it will make the student loans twice as much as it was before they were furloughed or working without pay.

So just because these 800,000 federal workers may make $50,000 a year, they are not as rich as Mr. Westfall portrays them to be.

They work to earn a paycheck and without that paycheck they, too, can be just like every other American who struggles to make ends meet.

Oh, and another thing. As for the suffering that this shutdown was causing to other Americans, Mr. Westfall needs to open his eyes and see reality because these other Americans he was referring to were veterans and senior citizens who rely on the services from the federal government to assist them.

These federal workers did not deserve to be put in a position where they had to seek assistance because this president can’t make good on his campaign promise to “Build the wall!” and “Mexico is going to pay for it.”

The only way we will have border security is when both sides come together and work out a common ground solution to fix the border security issue.

That includes the president working with both Democrats and Republicans.

Christine Dodd

Parkersburg

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