GOP House attempts to elect a Speaker (former Jim Jordan thread)

Without knowing what your friends do, I’m still pretty confident the work I do is far more important.

 

Probably depends on who you ask. My guess is the people on the airplanes they keep from crashing into each other find them more important. Or the people that live next to the dam they keep from exploding also find them more important.

 

GOP platform: burn it all down

 

The fundamental reason the GOP cannot agree on a speaker is that they lack a philosophical organizing principle. What they have instead is not a fight over policy differences, but rather a struggle among the factions for power. Kevin was able to keep the fractious coalition of disparate clans together for a very short while. Now those clans are jockeying for influence and not arguing for policy, ideas, or principles. Simply opposing democrats is not an organizing principle.

 

And niether is worshipping the orange god.

 

Wait, so what happens if your friend gets sick? He can’t stay home because planes will crash into each other?

 

I'm not sure this is the line of argument you want to take since you're the one talking about a "free vacation."

 

You implied that people that are not furlough are doing more important jobs than those who are furloughed. The example you provided was, I assume, air traffic controllers because without them, planes will crash. So I’m asking what happens when they get sick since planes aren’t crashing. Rather than distract, just acknowledge you really don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to determination of who gets furloughed and who doesn’t.

 

I mean… I’m not one to bash govt employees… but it seems pretty reasonable to assume the govt workers that have to keep working without a paycheck (I.e. essential roles) are doing more important/necessary jobs than the ones who just get sent home for “free vacation” whenever there is a govt shutdown.

If that’s a bad assumption, go ahead and enlighten us with an example.

 

Originally I was just messing with you over your free vacation comment. But using ATCs as an example is a strange hill to die on. As far as I know, it's literally the only occupation the govt deemed so essential that Reagan told them they legally couldn't strike and then fired like 90% of them when they refused to comply. I'm not sure it gets much more essential than that. Whether one sick one or the whole lot.

 

How does an ATC getting sick when there is obviously coverage at all help your point? Surely you see the issue of no ATCs working vs an ATC sick and someone fills in for them.

I haven’t normally seen an issue with your posts previously but you’re coming off looking really poor in this thread.

 

Folks supporting current operations (ie, Ukraine) would not be furloughed, folks supporting future operations (ie, China) would be furloughed. As for my actual furlough status, it varies based on what’s going on. I would not have been furloughed on Oct 1st due to current missions. Right now it’s a 50/50 chance I will be included in november. Biggest impact are the young workers who may be living paycheck to paycheck. Some of them tend to find temporary low paying jobs to hold them over.

 

Yes that’s how it should work, and it should include all of Congress.

The sick thing is Congress still gets their paychecks regardless! Not even an interruption. While some “essential” people have to work through missing paychecks, or the furloughed get sent home and no paycheck, all the local businesses around federal buildings miss out as well (and zero recompense to them).

I think the Republicans would stop messing around with this if it shut down their own pay or what they could pay staffers. They only do it because they know their own checks still come in, and as a stunt it probably entertains some of their donors too as a “bonus”. Because of that, my take has always been that innocent workers shouldn’t have to suffer because of the dumbasses in Congress - even if it results in “free vacation” - which is obviously not fair either. I just like that it hammers home how pointless “government shutdowns” are as a governing strategy.

If Congress received no pay and had to be sequestered in their offices during any shutdown until resolved, then at least those bastids would have skin in the games they play.

 

Such a bad policy.

 

Im on the fence there. On paper it seems right, why pay for inaction right? However most are millionaires but some are not. So then we'd have part of the House able to bully the part that needs income. Not sure what the answer is.

 

Don't really care. If they're the ones shutting down gov, they and their staffs need to take it on the chin like the rest.
If they're well off financially, maybe they'd like to compensate their staffs to make their point. For those that aren't well off, maybe they would have more influence on the anarchists.

 

So many terrible pay stipulations. I’m not sure this is in the top 5

 

As a former (retired) government employee who got some free time off (if I recall it was a few days) as the result of a shutdown we were instructed not to come to work. We didn't have the option of working and waiting for deferred pay. Just my opinion but I suspect that if members of Congress responsible for government shutdowns lost pay during the shutdown maybe the problem would rapidly resolve itself. Not only do they receive their pay they're actually paid during the shutdown even if they're back in their districts/states campaigning.

Will members of Congress get paid if there's a government shutdown?

The short answer is yes. Lawmakers will continue to draw a paycheck even if they haven't reached a deal to fund the government. The reason is because of how their pay is treated under the Constitution and federal law. Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution states: "The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States." This means they must get paid whether or not other parts of the government are funded.​

Does Congress get paid during a government shutdown?