Posted on 12/27/2018 4:48:33 PM PST by mdittmar
This is the third federal government shutdown this year. And this one comes at a particularly hard time — during the holidays. How are you and your family faring? Is there a specific consequence you're facing this time compared with others?
NPR's Weekend Edition is working on a story about federal workers during the shutdown. If you are affected, please share your story with us in the form below, or here. A producer may contact you to follow up.
Yes, Please explain to me why you have a gooberment job when it is absolutely considered to be non-essential. I need it for my story!!
Protected US citizen Federal workers? What an ironic twist of fate... illegal immigration affects their livelihood.
While federal workers do not get paid during the furlough, they do get all back pay when it ends, and the time off is counted as administrative time, meaning it is not charged against their leave balances. In other words, a “government shutdown” is a free paid vacation.
I have been affected by this shutdown. I had an appointment at Walter Reed and arrived over an hour early because I left at the usual time, counting on usual traffic. The traffic wasn’t there. It was awesome. The government should shut down more often.
The DoD has been fully funded, so no DoD employees have been furloughed.
Close em down. They are 22 trillion in debt. The more they do, the more debt they create. It is simple basic math.
When I completed the assignments I would often have to wait up to 160 days to be compensated for that work. They would critique my work for days and finally they'd pass it off to the client who basically paid when it was convenient for them. And this was the norm in the private sector world. I didn't like it one bit, but there was zero choice in the matter and no job and or quitting was not an option.
And some of these over-paid, over benefited government employees are bitching?
Spit*
Oh noooos! Next up parading the poor overpaid gov workers with a sob story on MSM. Mind you the also probably have full health care. Scr6w them.
Are you a government employee who’s getting a paid paid vacation? A paid vacation that the commie media is referring to as a shut down?
For God’s sake, when is some spineless Republican going to stand up in front of a camera and point out that these people are not being shorted one thin dime. When they go back to work they will get all of the back pay for the time that, if anyone cares to note it, they did not work. When you get paid for not working it’s a paid vacation.
Federal Worker, a misnomer.
Breaking: Caravan of 5,000 federal workers headed for El Paso, will cross illegally into Mexico and demand asylum.
I’m not a federal employee; rather, I am an attorney that represents clients, mostly small businesses and non-profit organizations, before a federal agency in Washington. I’ve been a licensed attorney since 1979, so I’ve been through government shutdowns before, with the most significant shutdowns being in December, 1995-January, 1996 and the Obama government shutdown in October, 2013.
The agency I practice before, the FCC, has not shut down yet, despite its appropriation (within the State-Justice-Commerce appropriation package bill) not having been passed by the Senate. The FCC issued a press release that, because it had unspent appropriated moneys on hand, it will remain open through Wednesday, January 2, 2019.
Things seem to be going normally this week, while we perceive that a number of staff took vacations this week.
When the government shut down in late 1995, I was able to take a vacation that I had not planned on taking. I also was retained to handle a number of broadcast station acquisitions, so I actually billed out $3k more in the month that the government was closed than the previous month; those cases were all done on paper, and had to be shipped to the Mellon Bank payment processing center in downtown Pittsburgh, PA along with application filing fee checks (the FCC is a self-funding agency, meaning that they get 100% of their annual expenditures through application filing fees and an “annual regulatory fee” paid by each commercial station licensee (which in my opinion is an unconstitutional tax).
When Obama vetoed the appropriation in 2013 and closed the government, the FCC had gone to on-line application filing (which was not available in 1995-96), and Obama had all of the FCC computer systems shut down by 2 pm the first day of the shutdown, so we weren’t able to work on various cases until the shutdown ended and the computer systems were placed on-line again.
Trump, on the other hand, has promised that various government facilities won’t be closed down like the way Obama closed them in 2013. I assume this means that the FCC will leave its computer systems turned on (although if they crash they probably won’t be fixed until the government reopens).
I have two closings in the first ten days of January, and have scheduled a vacation on January 15.
If the government shutdown extends into February, this will have an affect on my business (as well as similarly situated attorneys, consulting engineers and related professionals).
If the government shutdown extends into late May, it will have an affect on the first group of broadcasters who are required to file broadcast radio station license renewal applications (these stations are located in MD, DC, VA and WV) which are due on June 1, 2019.
DJT really hacked off people around here today when he chided the ‘Rats for keeping the government closed, noting the irony that almost all of those who won’t get a paycheck are Democrats (HRC got 90% of the vote in DC, 88% of the vote in Prince George’s County, MD and 75% in Montgomery County, MD; 76% in both Arlington County and Alexandria City, VA and 64% in Fairfax County, VA).
They wouldn’t dare do that. They might have to actually work and be accountable . God forbid!!!
“How much of NPR’s budget was cut?”
Apparently not enough. My recommendation is for 100%. It’s not enumerated in the Constitution and is therefore an illegal enterprise.
I think all govt workers get all their back pay and a nice Christmas holiday to boot.
During a furlough, you do not get paid. You may not burn excess vacation or sick leave. You do not get paid; but the bills still arrive. Maybe you will get back pay, maybe you will not. You did nothing wrong, and are a political pawn. You cannot take a “vacation” and go anywhere because the day the bill is signed, you MUST report to work the next day. Even through several and they suck. Going with zero percent raises for 3 out of 8 Obama years was rough. Getting less than 2% every other year means we make less than we did 10 years ago. I could make a bit more in industry and for 28 years I did. Got tired of layoffs, reduction in force actions, having an Intel factory close, being out-sourced to Mumbai, India, and losing 90% of my retirement due to something I have zero control over. Now I build rockets that will take mankind to Mars, at a 30% reduction in my past salary - sacrificed for stability. And I put up with this crap. I am not your enemy. I am just a random Sr Scientist assigned to NASA, trying to earn a living and provide for my family.
You work for a government that gets shutdown quite often for political reasons. Therefore you must set aside savings for this contingency. NASA has planned, link here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-for-agencies/agency-contingency-plans/ along with the other plans. Not planning is not an optionl Not only do agencies need to plan, you need to plan.
We will be fine. If there are many who live paycheck to paycheck who will be hurt. Constitutionally, this budget should be finalized annually so this never happens. It’s only been since the Obama years that Congress has failed to do their job.
And both parties are responsible.
All taxpayers “Work” for the government.
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