DC’s shutdown is hurting government tech workers — and everyone else

Kin Lane fondly remembers working on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid in 2013. FAFSA is used by millions of college students each year to help access scholarship money, and Lane, an API expert, had an up-close look at the system. He saw the importance of ensuring financial data remains stored securely and can be accessed by Internal Revenue Service tools. The job wasn’t flashy, but it was tangibly meaningful – when his own daughter went to college, he would use FAFSA himself.

Lane wasn’t a veteran employee. He had recently joined the government as a Presidential Innovation Fellow and, in some ways, a skeptic. He was raised quest …

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