Around fifty Central Floridians, including federal workers, joined Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost at a town hall in Orlando Thursday to discuss the federal shutdown that began October 1.
Participants at the town hall included federal worker Pedro Geliga who has worked for the Department of Defense in Orlando for 14 years. Before that he was at NASA.
The impacts of the shutdown have been severe on federal workers, he said, especially when it comes to the short-term financial impact of not being able to pay monthly bills.
“It's going to raise late fees, penalties, damages, credit damage,” and other financial damages, said Geliga. “Some of us, they're going to be evicted or foreclosed on. It's definitely not going to help the economy, is it?”
He said some federal workers have put off paying for child and elder care, and may not be able to afford to travel home for Christmas this year if the shutdown continues.
Federal worker and TSA agent Chris Finlay, who works at Orlando International Airport, echoed these concerns. He said all his fellow TSA workers want to do is keep people safe and do their jobs.
But that’s getting harder every day. Agents are considered essential and are working without pay.
Finlay says he’s started a food drive with his union for TSA workers, but even that has been slowed by the shutdown, and the bureaucracy of the TSA.
“The agency is making it difficult for us to provide assistance, because they have a lot of red tape about donations, and it can only be so much. I've been personally sending food to the different airports to help provide assistance for people who maybe don't have food, or maybe they could offset some of the cost for food so they can drive to work one more day next week,” Finlay said.
At the town hall, Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost encouraged residents to call their local representative and ask for an end to the shutdown. He said calls do make a difference.
“I don't know if any of you have been in a congressional office when the phones are ringing off the hook, when the fax machine is spitting out letters, when there's letters being walked in by the box loaded into an office. Legally, every single correspondence that comes to our office gets logged. It gets logged. It gets categorized,” Frost said. “It helps people feel the pressure. It helps the members feel the pressure. It makes the staff feel the pressure.”
Frost said things like going out and protesting also help. He encouraged people to attend No Kings Protests in Orlando on Saturday or any of the dozens more planned throughout Central Florida.
Last week, Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who broke with her party and has been calling for an end to the shutdown, also encouraged constituents to call their representatives.
Speaking on CNN, she said her staff tracks “100% of the calls that come into my office.”
The Senate failed to advance a Republican bill to extend government funding and end the shutdown for a 10th time on Thursday.
