 "The United States flag is unfurled at the Pentagon in Arlington, VA. The American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 am on September 11, 2001 which caused a partial collapse. Reuters/Representational image")
As the US government shutdown continues for the fourth week, President Donald Trump’s government is already facing a new dilemma of how to pay service members in the next month. The $8 billion that the Trump administration found to cover the military’s paychecks is due to run out at the end of the month, The Hill reported.
Amid the struggle, Senate Democrats on Thursday sank a vote on Senator Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) bill to pay active-duty military personnel and federal employees required to work during the shutdown. Hence, troops, sailors and Air Force members may not receive their October 31 paycheck.
Now with no end to the shutdown in sight, the Trump administration will need to figure out where to pull additional funds if it wants the forces to be paid. “While I am grateful President Trump paid service members thus far, I am concerned that money will run out by the end of October and our military won’t get paid on time,” said Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), a former Navy helicopter pilot who last month introduced a stand-alone military pay bill, the Pay Our Troops Act. However, Kiggans’ bill had little movement in the Senate.
The Trump administration looks for money for troops
On October 11, Trump directed the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to pay service members’ mid-month paychecks by using $8 billion in previously appropriated Pentagon funds meant for research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E).
However, the pay cycle cost roughly $6.5 billion, leaving only $1.5 billion leftover for the looming October 31 payday, which is also expected to cost $6 billion to $7 billion. “My understanding is that the initial money pulled from the RDT&E account was only sufficient to cover the Oct. 15th payroll,” Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told The Hill.
Harrison noted that there are still plenty of other accounts with carryover funding from previous years that Pentagon leadership can tap to keep the pay flowing for months, but at the end of the day, “they are just robbing Peter to (literally) pay Paul,” he said. “Once funding is restored, they will need to move this money back into the accounts it came from," he explained.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsIn the midst of this, the Democrats have held firm in demanding that Republicans extend soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies and negotiate an end to the shutdown with them. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) on Thursday called Johnson’s bill “a ruse,” warning it would give the White House too much power to determine which federal workers get paid and which remain furloughed.
“We will not give Donald Trump a license to play politics with people’s livelihoods,” Schumer said. Democrats instead wanted all federal employees to get paid during the shutdown. “Republicans are hell-bent on letting Trump pick winners and losers here, but every federal worker, servicemember, and federal contractor deserves to get paid,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in a statement.