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Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

    Government Workers Go Through First Payday During Shutdown

    Government Workers Go Through First Payday During Shutdown

    The Government’s partial shutdown limps into its third week today, marking the first pay period where 800,000 workers have gone without a paycheck. The workers are either furloughed or have been working without the certainty of a paycheck.

    Information compiled by American Progress, taken from data collected from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, estimates that 2.2 billion dollars of money is not given out every two weeks that this shutdown will go on. A shutdown President Trump has been cited to say he could carry on for “months or years.”

    The shutdown, came into fruition on the Friday before Christmas last year: December 21, 2018. The Congress attempted to pass a national budget, but President Trump refused to sign if he did not get 5.7 billion for the construction of his border wall. A wall that has been part of his agenda since the campaign trail back in 2016.

    During the shutdown, the 116th Congress was sworn in, changing Speaker of the House. This presents a new issue with Chuck Schumer (Minority Leader in the Senate) and Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House) of course being unyielding through several meetings with the president. Neither side want to compromise.

    There have been many attempts to change the trajectory of the shutdown. Congress offered to provide 1.6 billion for “border security,” not promising Trump the wall. The President attempted to declare a national emergency to get the wall’s construction to become a reality.

    So far all that has changed is the demands of Trump, now asking for “steel not concrete” to build the wall, changing the price tag to 25 billion.

    No end in sight, one can only hope that there can be enough of a truce to allow workers to return to work or returned to being paid at work before enough two weeks pass.

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