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Does this article really say that uniformed troops won't get paid but half of civilian defense department employees will?! Either this is another press fail or
by spikels 13y ago
Does this article really say that uniformed troops won't get paid but half of civilian defense department employees will?! Either this is another press fail or our government is even more fucked up than I thought.
Perhaps like the sequester earlier this year all the damage from the "shutdown" is just for show. After all "essential" services will continue and the government decides what is "essential".
- dkuntz2 13y agoNo. Nobody gets paid (at least as far as I understand it), but civilians deemed essential personnel will still be required to work.
- spikels 13y agoI'm confused. The US government spends around $3.8 Trillion and takes in around $3.1 Trillion (2014 estimates). So it seems like it could pay 85% of its bills without borrowing. Wouldn't they be able to pay the less than $200 Billion annual cost of military personnel out of the $3.1 Trillion?
- FireBeyond 13y agoNothing to be confused about, if you realize the underlying rationale - which is not that they can’t pay the military, but that if they don’t, or threaten not to, that can be used as leverage for whatever else they may want.