Always nice that no matter the party, the rich wealthy congressman can afford to weather a long storm, but the average gov't employee is hit hard in the wallet.
Our rich wealthy congressman have it set up that their pay falls under a separate system with in the government, and mainly for this very reason. So they don't have to go with out being paid.
My wife is full time Air National Guard in PA, but their pay comes from the federal budget because they're military. She is an air traffic controller, and is considered an essential employee and must report to work, but won't get paid.
This exact thing happened in PA with state employees (which I am), where they couldn't agree on the budget, so they furloughed all but the essential employees (which I am) and I had to work with out a check. Luckily I only missed one check, and yes you get back paid, but it's still a major thing because you're bill collectors want their money (though they are reasonable and will work with you, but the gas stations won't).
And just so you know, all of those receiving government assistance will not be affected. Why? Because they "depend" on their checks, but apparently working people don't.
So glad our congressman, whom the people vote into office to be their voice, locked this out because they couldn't agree on petty things. It's just one side won't agree with where the other side wants to fund, so they won't agree with the budget. One of the biggest ones is abortion clinics. Why SHOULD my tax dollars go to terminate a pregnancy of a teenager who wanted to trap her boyfriend into staying with her by having sex with him at 13/14 years of age, and when he finds out he flips and says he wants nothing to do with the baby and she only wanted it to trap him, so why keep it. Just get mommy and daddy to take me to the abortion clinic to terminate it because they couldn't teach me morals enough to say NO.
I doubt it'll go longer than 2-3 days.
And to sum it up more, the republicans won't agree on funding stuff the democrats want, and vice versa, so they just said "we won't pay anyone until you agree with us" and the others replied with "fine, no skin off my nuts" and they locked every thing out ...... except their own pays. I mean, heaven forbid they can't order their S&M crap to have 3 prostitutes whip them in their hotel rooms this weekend. Our whole democracy would fall apart for crying out loud.
