The largest federal workers' union is now asking Congress publicly to pass a stopgap spending bill to end the shutdown, a direct message to Democrats who have been voting repeatedly against such a bill.

“Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight,” American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) President Everett Kelley said in a statement.

“It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship.”

Republicans have passed such a bill eight times in the House, but can't get past the filibuster in the Senate, even with three Democrats voting with them to do so.

"Unacceptable"

Senate Democrats have blocked the clean CR a dozen times, and now it's been almost a month since many federal employees have been paid.

AFGE represents more than 800,000 federal workers, and wants to avoid seeing them run into serious financial difficulties as the shutdown drags on.

“These are patriotic Americans – parents, caregivers, and veterans – forced to work without pay while struggling to cover rent, groceries, gas and medicine because of political disagreements in Washington. That is unacceptable,” Kelley stressed.

“Unfortunately, shutdowns have become a recurring tactic in Washington. But there is no ‘winning’ a government shutdown.”

"National disgrace"

The workers will get back pay when the shutdown ends, but most people are not equipped to go for extended periods of time without pay.

“When the folks who serve this country are standing in line for food banks after missing a second paycheck because of this shutdown, they aren’t looking for partisan spin,” he said. “They’re looking for the wages they earned. The fact that they’re being cheated out of it is a national disgrace.”

Not only have Democrats tried to hold the spending bill hostage to get healthcare subsidies that were ended by the One Big Beautiful Bill, but they also blocked a GOP bill last week that would have paid most essential workers during the shutdown.

Punishing federal workers is not right, and they shouldn't be doing it.

They lost the election, but they are still flexing what little power they have to try to get what they want, even though it will hurt the country overall.

It's time to get these partisan hacks out of our government and get back to making sure our elected leaders take care of the nation's business the way they were elected to do.