Posted on 10/07/2025 10:53:34 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The government shutdown has stretched into its second week with no end in sight.
The Trump administration has argued that federal employees are not automatically entitled to back pay, maintaining that Congress must approve any such payments in legislation ending the shutdown.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday addressed the possibility of some federal workers not getting paid when the shutdown ends.
"As we’ve said before, the livelihoods of the patriotic Americans serving their country in the federal government are not bargaining chips in a political game," Everett Kelley said. "It’s long past time for these attacks on federal employees to stop and for Congress to come together, resolve their differences, and end this shutdown."
The president of the American Federation of Government Employees condemned the possibility that some workers could be denied back pay.
"As we’ve said before, the livelihoods of the patriotic Americans serving their country in the federal government are not bargaining chips in a political game," Everett Kelley said. "It’s long past time for these attacks on federal employees to stop and for Congress to come together, resolve their differences, and end this shutdown."
The government shutdown has stretched into its second week with no end in sight. Numerous votes on competing bills to reopen the government have failed.
Democrats are conditioning their support for short-term funding on extending health subsidies that lower the cost of Affordable Care Act plans. Republicans have said negotiations over health care subsidies should take place only after the government is reopened.
(Excerpt) Read more at scrippsnews.com ...
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Trump was wrong. I'm not yet tired of all this winning!
They have due process. Litigate it in civil courts. Sometime in 2037 you’ll get paid.
President Trump is pretty much guaranteeing the Winsome Sears will not be the next Governor of Virginia.
How about some layoffs?
Sadly, I feel you may be correct given the vast number of federal employees/retirees in Virginia... She is, by far, the best candidate! However, nationally, there is no love of federal employees as a whole..., a political dilemma!
I disagree. If the workers are legally owed the money and it has been the policy to pay them when they return to work then they should be paid. Not every federal worker is a worthless bureaucrats (those would be the higher ups) some are putting it their required hours doing the work they were hired to do. D.C. is pretty much a company town. There are not that many options that don’t involve government work.
The Democrat congress critter that caused the shutdown are not really going to suffer financially because of it. It is not right to take money from workers who will be hurt if they don’t get the back pay they were pretty much promised.
Bkmk
At least you can see this would be a big political loss. Rank and file government workers should not be used as financial cannon fodder in the war against Democrat demands.
My thoughts:
1) "Rank and file government workers" almost always equals Dim voters. Their party caused the "shut down". They will keep electing Dim candidates to do it again as long as it hurts someone else.
2) Name any private employees who gets backpay after a layoff when the employer had to temporarily shut down because of money issues. I can't think of one. Including 3rd party workers for govt contracts. I.e. In Birmingham, AL for decades there was an airplane work employer that did govt contracts for doing maintenance on large military airplanes (i.e. routine maintenance, or conversions from passenger to cargo planes). I knew many people who worked there. Those workers were experience with putting aside money for the inevitable layoffs with no pay. Why should direct govt employees be any different?
Why anyone would choose to work for the government in any capacity these days is beyond me.
Where are the Mass Firings?
Let the RATS pay them out of their own pockets, since they are the ones who keep voting to keep the government shut down.
People who actually show up for work ... military, ICE, other law enforcement, ATC, whatever, need to be paid for the work they did. People who did NOT show up for work need to be treated to LWOP. And they can blame Chuckie Scummer and his cronies for their problems.
” Virginia IS the swamp State.”Charlie Kirk.
Agreed. And aren't they still getting paid? If I understand it correctly, it's not the entire govt that's "shut down". When it gets to some kind of austerity phase, the Treasury and/or Trump has an algorithm (perhaps with some leeway) to pay the necessities of govt. I haven't heard of military members or ICE on furlough. But maybe I missed that.
I'm not clear on that. I believe there are three categories:
1) Working now, getting paid now.
2) Working now, should get deferred pay later.
3) Not working now, possibly not going to get paid.
But I don't know too many civil servants. One I know seems to be in category (2), is a civil service employee of the Navy.
The solution is for them to use all their sick and vaca pay. After that, they are SOL.
“Rank and file government workers” almost always equals Dim voters.”
This is one of those “conservative” urban legends. Every study of Federal workers has shown that as a group they typically have 30-35% who vote Republican regularly. That is roughly 1 in 3 Federal workers and does not include Independents who might vote Republican sometimes but not always.
In a state like Virginia, that 30% represents over 50,000 votes. Votes we probably easily could have gotten. Throwing them under the bus for no good reason is a loser strategy.
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