Q&A of the Day – Who Has Been Paid During the Partial Shutdown – What's the Impact?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Social: @brianmuddradio
iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station page in the iHeart app.
Today’s entry: Submitted via Talkback: You keep saying that the shutdown is not affecting anybody. It's affecting my niece who just joined the army last year as a 2nd lieutenant out of ROTC in college. She's not getting paid. My sister, who has been a teacher on army bases for 25 years, is not getting paid. So it does affect people, not as many, but some.
Bottom Line: I appreciate where you’re coming from with this note and want to specifically address what I’ve said and also the specifics of the concerns regarding your family members in addition to who has already been paid during the partial government shutdown and who will be paid under the partial government shutdown.
Given my provocative stance on slashing the size of the federal government, which I firmly believe needs to be done (and with a $37.6 trillion federal debt, and growing, must be done – at some point for the stability of our country), and the way that I’ve repeatedly asked the question about whether any aspect of your life has been impacted due to the partial government shutdown, I can understand how what I’ve said could easily be misconstrued – which is the case behind the context of today’s note.
With the partial shutdown that’s now in its 20th day, making it the third longest partial government shutdown in history (but also the largest in U.S. history with 34% of the federal government offline as opposed to what’s typically about 20%), I’ll pose the question that I’ve commonly asked throughout the past few weeks as this has played out. If not for the reporting of the partial government shutdown in the news, would you have even known that over a third of the entire federal government has been offline for 20 days? I can say without hesitation for me the answer is no. I can also say that aside from federal government employees who’ve reached out, I’ve yet to hear from anyone who has.
This isn’t to say that instances don’t exist where this is the case, they do exist – a la certain national parks, tourism in D.C., etc. but the over-arching point behind this isn’t to be combative or provocative for the sake of being provocative. It’s to be instructive. The fact of the matter is the average Floridian, the average American, living their daily life hasn’t been impacted in any noticeable way by the shutdown. I’ll point out that would appear to be the kind listener behind today’s note who is speaking in regard to potentially impacted family members.
My point for doing so, as I’ve spoken to, is this as I mentioned on Friday: I say this without hesitation; the single best thing that could happen right now to this country is if we eliminated 34% of the federal government permanently...and then kept going (do you really think you’d know if the number was 40%?). Fun fact, if we actually did eliminate just 29% of the federal government permanently, 5% less than what is offline now; we’d put an end to federal deficits. If you had a vote to make that a reality right now, how would you vote? To keep the nearly $2 trillion dollar budget deficits or to eliminate 29% of the federal government that you’ve realized doesn’t have any meaningful impact on your life, only your wallet, permanently? As my previous analysis has shown, if we were to make the current partial shutdown permanent, reducing the size of the federal government by 34%, we’d go from having annual deficits of nearly $2 trillion, to approximate annual surpluses of $300 billion. I believe it’s important to use the opportunity of this moment accordingly, which is my motivation. It’s not to slight federal government employees who are reporting to work. So, about that...
I did say something on Friday preceding this note that should be qualified/amended. It was this: (today is) the latest reminder that 34% of the federal government isn’t doing what it usually does and with almost no exceptions – it doesn’t matter to anyone other than those who received the furloughs. While I did, and have, pointed out exceptions for those who’ve been furloughed, in terms of the impacted class, I did not carve out an exception for employees working but whom may have their compensation delayed. That’s a fair distinction that’s brought up, that’s worth addressing. So, about that...
First and foremost, it’s not the case that federal employees who’ve been reporting to work aren’t being paid. Legally, they are not only to be paid, but even those who aren’t working and are furloughed, are to be paid. The question comes down to the timing of when that will be. For many, last Wednesday, the 15th was a typical payday that came and went without a paycheck that day. That most certainly does have a temporary impact on the non-furloughed employees as well and that’s worth noting.
As for the military, President Trump directed, and the federal government delivered payment to all 1.2 million active-duty military members last Wednesday. With the pre-planned protests on Saturday now behind us there’s an expectation that this could be the week where there’s movement to end the partial shutdown in D.C. We shall see...