A shutdown that would halt pay for military families and government workers comes at a particularly precarious time for many households that are already struggling financially.
With six kids under the age of 15 to support, Stephen Booth, a police officer for the Air Force in Kansas, doesn’t have room in his budget for a missed paycheck.
But like millions of other government employees across the country, Booth is bracing for his pay to stop indefinitely at the end of the month as Congress careers toward a government shutdown.
House Republicans left Thursday unable to reach a compromise within their ranks over a new budget, including funds for the Defense Department, with a handful of conservative holdouts demanding additional spending cuts. Unless Congress acts, the federal government will not be able to pay its 4 million employees after Sept. 30.
The best part is congress will keep getting paid. So, no skin off their back shutting down the government.
Everything the government can’t agree on laying its bills we should fire them all and elect an entirely new congress. It’s completely unacceptable to be doing this every few years.
Most do not make the majority of their money from their government paycheck. Wild how they can get elected and suddenly make millions.
Yeah, it’s super scummy that people can do that. Happens to a good portion of congress people. A lot of insider trading going on too.
The need to pass the MCCARTHYS Act
Aka My Constituents Cannot Afford Rebellious Tantrum, Handle Your Shutdown Act,
Which would halt congressional pay during shutdown.
Conservatives don’t want to pay federal workers anyway, they have stated they want to fire them all and end all regulation of businesses.
In Australia the Governor General would call a double dissolution of parliament where they all get fired and we have another election.
Looks like they need unions and contracts.
Not an option for many federal workers.
Must be the last quarter of the year.
Right when they can afford it most!
Only a very limited set of the DoD shuts down when Congress doesn’t pass a budget. Efforts related to national security (which most of DoD falls under) continue regardless. A “police officer for the Air Force in Kansas” has little to worry about, even if he’s a contractor. National security functions continue when the government shuts down.
Also past shutdowns didn’t represent a “missed paycheck” for those affected, but rather a delayed one. Everyone got back-pay when past shutdowns ended. This isn’t a guarantee - Congress has to pass it as part of the spending bills - but it has always happened.
Millions of federal civilians and contractors will be furloughed during a shutdown, and that’s a very bad thing. But the military angle in this article is just plain false.
Civilian employees will get it all paid back (so it’s basically an extra paid vacation for them). With what most of them make (that I interact with), if they can’t take responsibility for simple budgeting for a couple of weeks - that’s their own shitty fault.
Should Congress not put us in this situation - absolutely! They need to loose all their pay (i.e. no later payback) for at least twice as long as the shutdown is. I know, won’t matter to the vast majority of them.
