In Government Shutdown, Congress Members Still Get Paid But Federal Workers Don't

In Government Shutdown, Congress Members Still Get Paid While Federal Workers Wait In Limbo

By Dave Jamison | Huffington Post | Posted: 09/27/2013 7:37 pm EDT
Excerpts:

WASHINGTON –“535 civil servants in Washington don't have to worry about missed mortgage payments or mounting credit card debt due to a shutdown: the very members of Congress who threaten to grind government to a halt.

The salaries of Congress members, like the president, come from a pool of mandatory funds and aren't subject to the whims of lawmakers. If a shutdown happens, their checks keep coming, no matter what.

In the event of a government shutdown, hundreds of thousands of federal workers would be furloughed, not knowing if or when they'd get paid. Their paychecks would ultimately depend upon the benevolence of a fractious Congress, which decides whether to pass legislation retroactively paying workers for their lost time.

"When the government shuts down, employees don't get paid," Colleen Kelley, head of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 150,000 federal workers, said Friday. "No matter how much Congress does not work, it still does get paid."

Elizabeth Lytle, a 55-year-old Environmental Protection Agency employee from Illinois, said it's unjust that "blowhards" on Capitol Hill would continue to get paid while middle-class workers are thrown into uncertainty. Lytle has already taken six unpaid furlough days this year and resorted to tapping her retirement funds for dental work.

"I know that Congress is what they consider essential personnel - they get paid regardless," Lytle said. "To me, that's not fair. That is not fair at all."

The GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill last week that made government funding contingent upon defunding the Affordable Care Act.

On Friday, after days of showmanship by Obamacare opponents, the Democratic-controlled Senate sent the funding legislation back to the House after stripping the Obamacare provision. It's now up to House leaders whether to force a shutdown.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/27/government-shutdown-congress-gets-paid_n_4005863.html
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IMO: If a government shutdown does occur, the House should tax every legislator that voted for the shutdown their entire paycheck for each day of the shutdown. Any legislator in the Senate that votes for a shutdown should incur the same penalty.

They have been behaving like a group of 3rd graders, and taking away their paychecks, when federal workers don’t get paid , will be solid recompense for the extreme damage these republican legislators are doing to our country.

If the House can go on a tantrum and colossal meltdown with the whole country watching, seeking to do harm to the workers of this country, seeking to overturn this government by shutting it down and destroying our financial credibility with the nation and the world.

It is apparent that even as the republican legislators may mandate a shutting down of our government without a Consitutional reason for doing this damaging event, they don’t even care about the federal workers who are immediately out of work while legislators play with the American people as hostages

The republicans in Congress are truly disgusting, treasonous people, no doubt about it now.

 

Shut it down

 

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Do you really think that the Dems will allow the tparty to take them hostage? Let the shutdown happen and we will see the 'Boehner Babies' run for cover so fast they will be an indistinct blur!

 

Why would you create so many threads on it if you don't believe it ? Trolling ?

 

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I am a bearer of bad news for the GOP and their tparty underlings. I call it news you can call it what is most familiar to your agenda...troll much?

 

So you are just trolling, ok. I thought you might be looking for a real discussion, but alas you are not.

 

IF the government is shut down...EVERY SINGLE POLITICIAN SHOULD NOT GET THEIR SALARY until they get back to work! And their back to work pay should NOT be retroactive from the time they weren't paid. They shut down government (and all the politicians from the President on down, should lose their pay! And when they do go back to work...they should have to work the full week or month (or however they get paid) to get their first paycheck! Government shut down is the GOVERNMENT'S fault and nobody else's therefore THEY should be the ones suffering without a paycheck until they get their @sses back to work!

 

The last time the Government shut down precious few people noticed except the government workers.

I say................

SHUT IT DOWN!​

Save a few bucks on worthless Government workers.

 

Here we go again - raisin' the debt limit so we can go deeper in debt...

House could consider debt limit as well as stopgap spending: Speaker
Tue Sep 29, 2015 - As the U.S. Congress on Tuesday moved toward passing a short-term funding bill to avert government shutdowns this week, House Speaker John Boehner left open the possibility of tackling major fiscal measures in October, including raising the nation's borrowing limit.

See also:

Senate propels stopgap spending bill to keep government open
29 Sept.`15 | WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is on track to pass a spending bill to prevent the government from shutting down this week, over the opposition of the most hardline conservative Republicans.