Not really the subject of this thread, but I am curious.
Didn’t the laid off workers collect back wages once the government “reopened”?
There were two "furloughs." One for Sequestration, which was different from the government shutdown. Sequestration happened first. As I understand it, some agencies avoided furloughs altogether. Others, like the FAA, quickly ended their furloughs when chaos hit airline traffic (Congress allocated money to pay the air traffic controllers in less than 48 hours - an almost unheard of legislative pace).
Others, like the Defense Dept, furloughed hundreds of thousands nurses (even those at Walter Reed caring for combat wounded), doctors, maintainers, intelligence specialists, cops, engineers - you name it.
Those salaries were never paid back.
One especially interesting bit of treachery - Barack Obama said he was going to take a pay cut to his Presidential salary in "solidarity" with the workers who were furloughed.
In a Budget Gesture, Obama Will Return 5% of His Salary
He lied.
He never took a pay cut.
White House won't say if Obama kept promise to return 5% of his salary in solidarity with budget sequester furloughs but his tax return hints that he never did