CQ Homeland Security Editor Patrick B. Pexton discusses the details of the deal between President Donald Trump and lawmakers to end the shutdown. Max Stier, president of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, says it has done lasting damage to the civil service and that Congress must never allow it to happen again.
DNC Chair Tom Perez released the following statement after leaders in Washington reached an agreement to reopen the government that does not include funding for a border wall:
“What was the point of all the pain that Donald Trump inflicted on federal workers? What was the point of the missed paychecks, the long lines at food banks, the chaos at our airports, and the sick children without health care? The longest shutdown in American history was avoidable, unnecessary, and disastrous for the country. And the American people know exactly who’s to blame: Donald Trump.
“Thanks to the steadfast leadership of Democrats in Congress, hundreds of thousands of American workers will finally have a reprieve from the suffering Donald Trump has caused. Democrats have been prepared to work on a border security bill from the start of this ordeal; our leaders offered multiple proposals to keep the government open, including a strong bipartisan solution passed by voice vote in the Senate. And yet, Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress failed to do their jobs for 35 days. The American people will hold them accountable, and Democrats will fight tooth and nail to prevent a shutdown from happening again.”
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”
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 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.”
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
