It's a feature, not a bug!
I think that in the future if this keeps going there will probably be noticeable policy differences and shifts in the bureaucracy after this. Definitely a point of history that people should look to for ripple effects later down the line.
Critically think about the ripple effect of this situation:
1. It is clearly political shenanigans without a doubt, but;
2. Does this peal back the wool from the fact that, just maybe, we don't need this many government employees?
3. Reveals that senators who are both millionaires and still receiving pay, don't actually have your interests in mind
4. That taxes are wasted and a joke with respect to how they are implemented / allocated
5. that our security infrsastructure sold to us in the trillions is a 2-paycheck fragile sham (TSA) -- but the actual safety (Air Traffick Control) is in the same bucket?
6. That the media's only value is kvetching on the political bullshit of the literal moment (meaning: They teach nothing - only commentary)
7. the USA is a fealty based system beholden to literally a few hundred oligarchs
8. People have no recourse upstream.
9. People are apathetic to the entire display.
Senator Pay is $174k, which is less than senior developers around the tech world.
Your senior developer who frequents this site will make far more money than any Senator. The reason why Senators are millionares is because you need to be a millionare to even consider running for office (with all of the organization, ads, and stuff you need to buy...)
> Critically think about the ripple effect of this situation:
No. That's precisely WHY Republicans are shutting down the government. Because they want to push forward those viewpoints.
Its why Republicans are so happy to keep things shut down: the longer things are shut down, the more their point is proven ("That Government is inefficient").
Its a fundamental advantage Republicans have to shutdowns. Every shutdown "proves their point" innately.
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Government workers make far less than their counterparts in the private world. A "Senator" is the leader of an entire State, but will make far less money than a typical executive at any ol company.
Want to know where all of our good leaders have gone? They've gone into corporate leadership. Any ol' executive position at any major company will make multiples over a Senator or House member's salary.
Isn't this just a stipend to cover housing/food while drumming up kickbacks, insider trade information, or cushy post-office executive positions in many (unfortunate) cases?
not sure if we can necessarily rely on base pay as being an accurate measure of income related to being a senator..
Your typical executive will have a base pay well over 200k, and then get a contract kickback based on performance. I have my doubts that any Senator actually makes as much as say... a Microsoft Executive.
And that's like, minor executive level. If you're a 3-letter executive (CEO, CFO, etc. etc.), expect $million+ paychecks with stock compensations on top of that, based on performance. Consider the Sears CEO who destroyed the company, he's making millions extra in bonuses, with a golden parachute to land safely even as the company withers and dies.
https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/29/news/companies/sears-ceo-ra...
He's got enough sense to wipe out his base pay to $1. But we all know that's a fake number anyway. In any case, the amount of money a Senator makes from their position or power is tiny in comparison to positions in private companies. The fact is: the US Government is not in the business of making money. They're in the business of providing essential services to the citizens (Military, Police, Post Office, etc. etc.), of which doesn't typically make a profit.
One of my friends said that DC has never experienced a recession. I hate how negative this sounds, but DC is finally realizing what happens when the largest employer in town suddenly closes. This is something that (pro-Trump) small town America has been having to deal with for at least the past 30 years.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/us/politics/trump-governm...
There'll be the temptation to muddy the waters with all sorts of things, like "how important" the government worker's work is. (The taxpayer's job can be perfectly well important too. You want to live without garbage collectors?) But that's all distractions. What right do they have to have such low-risk ("risk-free" is really not true, but there is certainly a qualitatively different degree of risk) jobs at the expense of people without such low-risk jobs?
This is no different then when the minimum wage rises, and people who were making what is now the new minimum wage complain that they're underpaid now. They were underpaid before, it's just more obvious to them after the policy change.
Don't be the crab pulling other crabs back into the pot. Help the other crabs get out, and consequently, helping you get out.
Wow, if this isn't straight-up communism, I don't know what is.
In a nutshell and highly simplified, but "essential" in the shutdown context means national security and transportation. It doesn't include functions that are nice to have, like quick processing of refunds.
This is the longest running shutdown in US History, and it isn't anywhere close to over yet.
I would be entirely unsurprised if this caused many professionals to leave public service, since the risk of not being able to make rent is now known. Why would anyone knowingly take a job that could suddenly and unexpectedly stop paying them a salary for unreasonable periods of time?
Even in the 90s and 00s with the DoD closing bases (BRAC), a lot of people were unimpacted or given job offers at other locations which mitigated the risk for most.
Government employees are, on the whole, underpaid for the sort of work they do compared to private sector equivalents (or where their expertise could be used if not the same job). The primary benefit has been the stability and pension system, both of which are being challenged in recent years.
Sorry but no. I worked for the government for 9 years and went through four shutdowns. I'd hardly call that rare. On NPR this morning they were interviewing people who said the same thing (so it's not just me). I was also not one of the lucky ones that got furloughed. When I was there a lot of people loved shutdowns because it was free vacation time. They knew they'd get backpay. The only thing they couldn't do was go out of town since any day they could be called back.
> This is not something most of them would have considered when signing on.
True.
> Government employees are, on the whole, underpaid for the sort of work they do compared to private sector equivalents (or where their expertise could be used if not the same job). The primary benefit has been the stability and pension system, both of which are being challenged in recent years.
Debatable. The government is a huge industry, and over-generalizing like that is impossible to do while maintaining any level of accuracy. Remember to include benefits as well as paycheck in your analysis.
(Technically, all outside employment by a federal employee has to be approved by their office to ensure there's no conflict and that it won't impact the quality of the work.)
And deferred pay, after 2 missed paychecks, doesn't help much. This paycheck is February's rent for many of them. Good luck in a week if they can't negotiate with their bank or landlord.
> US government shutdowns ... are rare events
not making an argument that people should have expected this (because I don't believe that. In fact I specifically agreed with that portion of the OP)
There are also resources available for people that can't go this long without a paycheck, that should help somewhat alleviate the pain [1].
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/18/here-are-the-banks-and-credi...
A lot of us (myself included), might work in startups and take big risks in our careers, but we're also exposed to a lot more upside. Not every other job should be like this, and lots of people don't want to work in such uncertain situations. These people thought they had a job that was largely safe, and that implicit promise has been broken.
Salary levels have nothing to do with it. Perhaps they might have to be higher if public sector employees had to have this risk, or perhaps there would be fewer people willing to work in the public sector (a win, that).
And again, if you hard to work w/o pay, you should get back-pay. This is only about furloughed employees.
Salary levels do determine risk - if you want someone to do a riskier job, you generally have to pay more - obviously there are a large number of other factors.
Never happens.
They mostly don't, both because the Administration has limited legal and even more limited practical political ability to do that, and because civil service rules further mitigate that risk with noncompetitive reinstatement eligibility.
They do take the risk that the political branches together decide a function is unnecessary, mitigated somewhat by civil service reinstatement rules.
> They practically cannot get fired.
> or perhaps there would be fewer people willing to work in the public sector (a win, that).
If you disagree with the size of our federal government on a political level that's no excuse to disrespect the people who work in it. Everybody is working for a pay check the virtues of the federal government have nothing to do with whether some people deserve to get what they negotiated for when they accepted a position.
The difference is they work for the oldest, singularly largest organization in the country and should, as part of that, expect some job stability.
The pay is usually marginal compared to private sector. The advantage you usually get is the government won't go bankrupt or get bought up and downsized.
Professional employees (lawyers, accountants, scientists) make less in government (usually much less), but non-professional employees usually make more in government.
There's a classical sense of professional it seems you're reaching for, but I'm having a hard time thinking of a non-professional white-collar worker which would do better in federal government than the private sector.
Eg, surveyors are clearly professionals. Software developers? IT?
I am excluding, by the way, private contractors working in the public sector which tend to be grossly over paid but lack any sort of pension benefits.
Any NASA Aerospace engineer will make more at Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman. Its just the facts. Missiles and Weapons make more money than generic US Space research, even if one is more fundamentally important to the advancement of our civilization. Any IRS Tax-expert will make more money as an Corporate Accountant (who are paid to avoid taxes, instead of applying them fairly across the country).
Everyone, even people who were allowed to seek separate work, should be paid their expected wage - this would even inject a bit of consumer power into our economy and might help reduce the long term effects this is having.