Dexter Nguyen - Oped 2.docx

Dexter Nguyen Op-Ed 2

GoFundMe campaigns open a ‘minefield’ of ethical questions during the shutdown? As the current shutdown of the federal government passed the threshold for the longest in American history, many federal services remained on hold, leaving thousands of federal workers and the Americans that relied on them in dire financial straits. This human cost was real and felt in real time in communities across the country, creating significant issues facing government employees. Questions have arisen involving whether furloughed employees can use crowdfunding platforms such as GoFundMe.com to raise money to support their families’ basic needs like paying for rent or groceries, or whether they can volunteer to pick up trash at national parks. There is a dispute around this issue, with the reasons for each side behind. One of the parties who questioned the action of the federal government employees is the Office of Government Ethics (OGE). This organization, which is responsible for checking on government officials who break ethics rules, believed that federal employees may put themselves in legally risky situations once accepting furlough donations, including GoFundMe. To support their viewpoint, directors of OGE also mentioned current rules from their guidance, prohibiting federal employees from accepting a gift valued at $20 or more. A GoFundMe donation, from their perspective, is defined as a gift. Also, it is true that federal employees can’t accept gifts from “prohibited sources,” or organizations that do business with the employee’s agency. With that in mind, federal employees soliciting shutdown donations would need to ensure the source of every contribution. For this reasoning, OGE has a right to question about GoFundMe or the potentially negative consequences of government employees’ interaction with donations. Moreover, what OGE authorities were trying to do is protecting the image of the federal government agencies. When the topic of the US government shutdown appeared in every public media platform, not only American but also worldwide people were paying their attention to the government’s activities. Financial funds, or money raisings like GoFundMe, meanwhile, can be said to be a popular American scandal in its political history.

Dexter Nguyen Op-Ed 2

However, from the US federal government employees’ perspective, it was believed that there are some reasons behind their support for GoFundMe campaigns. First, as the government approached long days in shutdown, dozens of people were soliciting donations anywhere they could to ease the financial uncertainty ahead of missed paychecks. This could be described as an urgent situation when there was a shortage of official emergency funds to carry them over during such a shutdown. While the federal workforce is considered stable with a low quit rate, the limited connection with the private sectors and strict federal laws also restricted these employees from strong reactions enough to save themselves and their families for a daily cost of living. Second, when we dive deep into the disputed regulations, the Office of Government Ethics doesn’t have guidance on how federal employees can use online donation platforms to bridge the financial gap between paychecks during the government shutdown. It might be due to the fact that the US government have not been easily recorded as shutdown, or at least the shutdown had never lasted considerably longer in its history. Last, there is a strong belief among the public that over 800,000 federal workers furloughed or working without pay didn’t deserve the shutdown’s hardship. They are protecting the country’s coastal waters and keeping hundreds of airports and American skies safe, among other important duties as civil servants and contractors. Sites like GoFundMe and the ever-evolving social media space, undoubtedly, had the great opportunity to take action and deliver a message of hope and solidarity, creating more opportunities for federal employees. From two perspectives abovementioned, I don't think GoFundMe campaigns opened a ‘minefield’ of ethical questions during the shutdown. It seems not right when you had to comply with the ethics laws and regulations but not given common sense guidance about what would be permissible in the context of GoFundMe. There were federal employees who were not just living paycheck to paycheck but day-to-day who had to feed their children.