Tag: #GOPShutdown

DAY 35: Airports Shut Down, Workers Miss Their Second Paycheck

NOTE:  We didn’t receive this early enough yesterday to post prior that the bill passage and the president signing the short-term funding bill. However, the shutdown’s impact on this country and American workers remains.

It’s day 35 and the Trump Shutdown has hit a new low for Americans as major airports were forced to delay flights and workers missed their second paycheck today. Meanwhile, families across the country and forced to make difficult choices between paying their bills and life-saving medical care. Here’s the latest:

The Trump Shutdown has delayed flights at major airports.

USA Today: “Flights at three major airports were being delayed Friday because of an increase in air traffic control employees calling in sick as the government shutdown continued. The Federal Aviation Administration’s flight delay map showed significant departure delays at Philadelphia and Newark, New Jersey, on Friday morning. Lesser delays also showed at New York LaGuardia.”

Workers missed their second paycheck because of the Trump Shutdown.

CNBC: “If the partial government shutdown continues through this week – and there is no end in sight – Friday will mark the second paycheck missed by affected federal workers, whose household budgets have been completely upended.” Continue reading “DAY 35: Airports Shut Down, Workers Miss Their Second Paycheck”

Wilbur Ross doesn’t understand why furloughed federal workers need food banks

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP

Commerce secretary suggests they should be able to take out bridge loans

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says he does not understand why federal employees who are furloughed or have been working without pay during the partial government shutdown would need assistance from food banks.

Several credit unions serving workers at federal departments and agencies have been offering stopgap loans, as they have during previous shutdowns. But it’s not clear how even those loans would be sufficient as the shutdown enters its second month.

“I know they are, and I don’t really quite understand why,” Ross said Thursday when asked on CNBC about workers getting food from places like shelters. “Because, as I mentioned before, the obligations that they would undertake, say borrowing from a bank or a credit union, are in effect federally guaranteed.”

View the complete January 24 article by Niels Lesniewski on The Roll Call website here.

DNC on Republicans Voting to Continue The Government Shutdown

DNC Chair Tom Perez released the following statement in response to Senate Republicans voting to continue to the government shutdown:

“Once again, Republicans have decided to drive us into a ditch instead of taking the path forward and giving American workers their pay. There is absolutely no excuse for their failure today – this is the exact same measure they approved by voice vote just last month. Democrats have voted again and again to reopen the government, but Republicans continue to march in lockstep with Trump and today backed his one-sided, ineffective proposal.

“Hundreds of thousands of workers will miss a second paycheck tomorrow because Republicans chose to go along with Trump’s latest publicity stunt. The American people are demanding an end to the Trump Shutdown. Democrats are ready to pass legislation to fund common-sense, effective border security when the government is reopened. It’s long past time for Republicans to stop holding workers’ paychecks hostage and end the shutdown crisis Trump created.”

Trump to delay State of the Union until after shutdown

President Trump said late Wednesday that he would deliver his State of the Union address after the ongoing partial government shutdown is over.

“As the Shutdown was going on, [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi asked me to give the State of the Union Address,” Trump wrote in a tweet. “I agreed. She then changed her mind because of the Shutdown, suggesting a later date. This is her prerogative — I will do the Address when the Shutdown is over.”

Trump, in a subsequent tweet, expanded on earlier statements suggesting he may do an “alternative” State of the Union, writing that he was not seeking another venue because “there is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber.”

View the complete January 23 article by Mary Tyler March on The Hill website here.

Furloughed government workers will be owed $6 billion in back pay by end of this week

Furloughed federal employees and labor unions staged a sit-in on Capitol Hill on Jan. 23, as the shutdown enters month two. (Video: Luis Velarde , Rhonda Colvin/Photo: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

As furloughed federal workers endure their fifth week without pay in what is now the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history, their missed paychecks are adding up: A new study estimated that workers affected by the shutdown will be owed $6 billion by the end of this week.

While circumstances vary — some workers are off the job while furloughed, while others are working without pay — it’s estimated that roughly 800,000 workers have had their pay interrupted by the shutdown. The study from Sentier Research, an Annapolis-based research firm, used data from an annual household survey by the U.S. Census Bureau to create a sample of 833,000 federal workers and found that the average furloughed worker has lost $5,600 in wages so far in the shutdown. Collectively, these workers are owed $4.7 billion. The number will jump to $6 billion at the end of the week, when many will miss their paychecks for the second time.

That figure is triple the back pay racked up in the last major government shutdown in 2013, which lasted 16 days. Wages lost by some 850,000 federal workers amounted to roughly $2 billion, according to a study from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

View the complete January 23 by Taylor Telford and Andrew Van Dam on The Washington Post website here.

Shutdown could cripple air travel, unions warn: At some point, ‘the entire system will break’

Majority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell and Minority leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the Senate floor ahead of a vote on the most recent proposals to end the government shutdown. USA TODAY

Unions representing air-traffic controllers, airline pilots and flight attendants issued a joint statement Wednesday warning of “serious safety concerns” in the air travel industry if the partial government shutdown continues.

The shutdown has forced air-traffic controllers, air marshals, Transportation Security Administration officers, FBI agents and other safety staff to work without pay, the statement says.

“In our risk-averse industry, we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break. It is unprecedented,” reads the statement issued by the presidents of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, Air Line Pilots Association and the Association of Flight Attendants.

View the complete January 23 article by Joel Shannon on The USA Today website here.

FBI Agents Aren’t Getting Paid During the Shutdown — and They Say It’s a Threat to National Security

One can’t afford to pay the mortgage on his new home. Another is struggling to pay medical bills incurred by his wife’s terminal cancer. A third feels humiliated and degraded, finding it difficult to even pay bills in full and on time.

FBI agents working without pay are struggling to make ends meet as the historic partial government shutdown enters its second month, according to a report from the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA), a group that advocates for 14,000 current and former FBI agents. The document, which shares anonymous anecdotes from dozens of FBI agents, details the financial strain on agents and their families and the significant blow the lapse in funding has meant for the bureau’s operations and ongoing investigations.

“I am proud to be an Agent, proud to serve my country, and willing to sacrifice my life in defense of the people and the Constitution,” says an FBI agent based in the Western region. “But to have my family placed in the financial situation we are currently facing due to partisan politics is disgusting to me as a government employee and a citizen.”

View the complete January 22 article by Jennifer Calfas on the Money website here.

John Kelly, former DHS secretaries call on Trump, Congress to end shutdown

Former White House chief of staff John Kelly and four other former Homeland Security secretaries are calling on President Trump and Congress to end the ongoing partial government shutdown and “fund the critical mission of DHS.”

The letter says that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees have been leaving the department because they cannot continue to work unpaid as the shutdown drags on, according to a copy of the letter obtained by NBC News.

“DHS employees who protect the traveling public, investigate and counter terrorism, and protect critical infrastructure should not have to rely on the charitable generosity of others for assistance in feeding their families and paying their bills while they steadfastly focus on the mission at hand,” the letter reads. “This is unconscionable.”

View the complete January 23 articl by Avery Anapol on The Hill website here.

White House seeks list of programs that would be hurt if shutdown lasts into March

White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, in the East Room of the White House on Jan. 14. Credit: Joshua Roberts, Reuters

White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has pressed agency leaders to provide him with a list of the highest-impact programs that will be jeopardized if the shutdown continues into March and April, people familiar with the directive said.

Mulvaney wants the list no later than Friday, these people said, and it’s the firmest evidence to date that the White House is preparing for a lengthy funding lapse that could have snowballing consequences for the economy and government services.

The request is the first known request from a top White House official for a broad accounting of the spreading impact of the shutdown, which has entered its fifth week and is the longest in U.S. history. So far, top White House officials have been particularly focused on lengthening wait times at airport security, but not the sprawling interruption of programs elsewhere in the government.

View the complete January 23 article by Damian Paletta and Juliet Eilperin on The Washington Post website here.

Senate blocks White House-backed bill to end shutdown

Senate Democrats blocked a White House–backed plan to end the 34-day partial shutdown, turning it down in a 50-47 vote on Thursday.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) joined with Republicans to advance the measure, but it fell short of the 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster.

In an unexpected development, GOP Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) voted against Trump’s plan. Lee is considered a fiscal hawk, and Cotton is one of the Senate’s most conservative members on immigration.

View the complete January 24 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.