Pay the People Who Show Up

Cedar Valley News – February 18, 2026
Pay the People Who Show Up
By: Lars Olson
From the fictional town of Cedar Valley, where characters from Quiet Echo continue to respond to real-world events.

Congress left town for a ten-day vacation while a quarter million federal workers show up to jobs that will not pay them.

The Department of Homeland Security shut down Saturday after lawmakers failed to agree on funding. This is the third partial shutdown in three months. More than ninety percent of DHS employees — TSA agents, Coast Guard members, Border Patrol officers, FEMA workers — are classified essential. Required to report. Not required to be paid until someone in a suit decides the argument is over.

I run a hardware store. I have four employees. If I told any one of them to show up Monday morning and work a full shift but I could not promise when the check would come, they would have every right to walk out. And I would deserve it.

That is the test. Not what you say about the people who work for you. What you do when their paycheck is in your hands.

The argument behind this shutdown is about immigration enforcement. Democrats want ICE officers to wear body cameras and show identification. Republicans say the enforcement mission cannot be weakened. The White House says it will not negotiate. Two American citizens were shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis last month, and both sides dug in.

I have opinions about immigration. Most people in Cedar Valley do. But this column is not about the border. It is about the paycheck. No matter where you stand on enforcement policy, there is no honest argument for asking a TSA screener in Anchorage or a Coast Guard mechanic in Kodiak to work for free while Congress flies home for recess.

Congress left Washington on Friday. They will not return until February 23. Ten days of vacation while the people they are supposed to fund go without a paycheck. The TSA administrator told Congress under oath her people live paycheck to paycheck — rent, groceries, childcare, gas to get to the airport. Nobody listened. They voted to go home.

I have run Olson’s Hardware for more than thirty years. In that time I have never missed a payday. Not during the recession. Not when the roof caved in. Not when my supplier raised prices, and my margins disappeared. I made payroll because payroll is a promise. A man who breaks a promise to the people who show up for him has no business running anything — not a hardware store, not a committee, not a country.

Caleb Mercer told me the same thing at the diner this morning. He said the worst thing a boss can do is make a man feel invisible. You can ask a worker to do hard things. You can ask him to do dangerous things. But you cannot ask him to do them for nothing and expect him to believe you respect him.

That is what Washington is doing. Telling a quarter million people they are essential enough to be required at work, but not essential enough to be paid for it.

I do not care which party you blame. Both sides use shutdowns as leverage. They treat the federal workforce like a bargaining chip — something to squeeze until the other side folds. The workers are not chips. They are people with mortgages, children, and electric bills. They did not create this fight. They should not be paying for it.

Here is what I would do. Pass a clean bill. Fund the department. Pay the workers. Then argue about the policy. Fight about body cameras and warrant procedures all day long, but do it while the people who protect the airports and patrol the coast have money in their accounts. You do not hold their families hostage to prove a political point.

Mildred told me last night I sound angry. I told her I am not angry. I am disappointed. Anger is loud. Disappointment is quiet. It is the sound a man makes when he expected better and did not get it.

I expected better from the people we sent to Washington. I expected them to understand something every small business owner already knows. You pay the people who show up. You pay them on time. You pay them before the arguments, before the politics, before the vacation.

That is not a Republican idea or a Democratic idea. It is a payroll idea. And it is past due.

This editorial is part of the fictional Cedar Valley News series. While the people and town are fictional, the national events they reflect on are real.

Want to know the full story behind Cedar Valley? Teresa, Caleb, Dan, and the community you’ve come to know in these editorials first came together in Quiet Echo: When Loud Voices Divide, Quiet Ones Bring Together. Discover how a small town found its way from fear to fellowship — one quiet act of courage at a time. Available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3ME4nSs

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