About 800,000 federal employees aren’t getting their paychecks while the shutdown is going on. Of those, about half are working for no pay, the rest are furloughed. Congress usually authorizes back pay for civil servants, but that’s not a guarantee.
Government contractors are much worse off. If the government isn’t paying out contractors, they have no money to pay their workers. Some workers are forced to use up paid leave. Some are told to stay home, and never receive back pay. If it drags on for days or weeks, the contracting companies start laying people off. Some are never re-hired after the shutdown ends. I haven’t found an estimate for how many contractors will be affected by the current shutdown, but this article says 40% of the government is contractors, so you’d expect about 500,000 contractors to be affected. That includes a variety of job types, from janitorial staff & building maintenance to retired civil servants coming back as contractors.
So that’s almost 1% of the US work force not getting paychecks. Which means those people will be cutting back on their spending, which multiplies the effect. Businesses in cities with major government facilities will feel the effect fairly quickly.
this is easy to understand, even not being an american.
It is his own party controling both of the chambers! They did not want to immediately confront. A small reflection, really, it is not hard to understand.
It’s very surprising a President would dare reject that bill.
But, we are talking about Trump.
Right now, I see fault everywhere. No one seems concerned about the people depending on their paychecks. Even missing one check can mean a mortgage payment doesn’t get made on time.
A lot of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have very little savings for emergencies.
Not at all surprising. This is the dumbest, most incompetent, morally blank, corrupt President in American history. Of course he rejected the bill. He’s an idiot.
Ivory, The OP was in direct response to Schumer and Pelosi’s statement. It wasn’t just a clumsy response to an interview question. They issued a well thought out published statement.
It came off as very simplistic and smug. Imho
paraphrasing…
“We’ll end this crises Jan 3 after taking power.”
I immediately thought of the other shutdowns (especially Clinton) and they certainly weren’t ended with the snap of someone’s fingers.
Your president could easily have avoided and delayed such a thing from your holiday season, it was the senate and the house both controlled by his own party that sent him the bridging financing - and he had by the reports expressed being okay with it, until he got criticized by some media personalities.
I do not see how a blame can be put on anyone but him, it is not the fault of your congress he changed his mind and his demands at the last minute right before your biggest holiday season.
Really how can you blame anyone but him? Not even the leadership of his party in the congress.
So, “Mexico will pay for the wall”, repeated endlessly, is just campaign rhetoric, easily ignored. But a statement that clearly implies intent and what the new leadership priorities will be, without laying out every bit of the detailed plan, is simplistic and smug and an indication that they doesn’t know how congress works.
Ok.
Also note that your quote doesn’t say he will reopen the government, but that they will pass legistralation [intended] to reopen the government. They will have the leadership, influence, and leverage to pass such legislation. Since they already have bipartisan support in the senate and will have leadership in the house, I’m not sure what your issue is with what he said.
I’m not sure Schumer or Pelosi can count on bipartisan support.
The first bill had it in the Senate. Then the Republicans came together and passed the 2nd by 217 to 185 in the House. Something Pelosi told Trump would never happen.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens in the next few days. I think some of the outgoing Senators may help end this. They can vote without any political penalties later.
Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t, but it brings to mind something I read the other day: “Cats are capable of learning 128 different human commands. But they don’t want to.”
Just curious, do you dial back any of your snide characterizations of Pelosi, Schumer, and/or change your opinion on the rationale of their approach, that you expressed in your OP?
Why do you think this will be resolved in the next days?
You have your own president upending the very bill that his own party organized and passed, with no real warning.
Do you think they are going to have the desire and the stomach to force a confrontation with the president of their own Party during the holiday? When they can simply kick the ball down the field to let the new Congress handle.
and even the Republican senators saying openly in the public they can not even be sure what Trump will accept…
It takes not very much sophistication in the american politics to understand it is not going to happen - it is the basic human relations and incentives.
Mr Trump self-created his own problem - no one can be blamed but him for the chaotic events.
