Government shutdown 2011
The dark shadow of a government shutdown is hanging over Capitol Hill and congressional offices are planning for the worst – like what to do with the more than one million government-issued BlackBerry cell phones.
Memos are starting to go out informing staffers if they are ‘essential’ or not, and rumors of collection bins for office-issued BlackBerry devices are flying through the hallways.
“We were hopeful maybe it won’t happen yesterday, but after this afternoon… with the president’s veto threat we are thinking this is going to happen. Reality is setting in. Everyone’s preparing now” – said one Republican House staffer Thursday.
The House Administration Committee issued a guidance memo Thursday encouraging members to confiscate furloughed employees’ BlackBerry phones and laptops to ensure no one breaks the moratorium on performing official duties.
Over a million BlackBerry cell phones are used by government employees, according to a spokeswoman for RIM, the company that owns BlackBerry.
“The physical collection does seem a little bit dramatic but certainly the temptation is absolutely there” – said the staffer, who asked not to be named because shutdown plans have not been made public yet. “For a lot of us this is our life and to say well, no, we have to put it on hold is very tough. I can’t imagine it. ‘Just sit back and stay at home’ sounds like it would be great, but it’s definitely not.”
Rep. Thad McCotter, R-Mich., said he will not collect his furloughed staffers’ cell phones.
- Government shutdown.
There’s no deal—yet—in the budget wars of 2011, keeping the threat of a government shutdown alive. And while President Obama said Thursday night the sides where closer together on key factors, he also said he was ‘not prepared to express wild optimism.’
Despite a series of negotiations at the highest levels, a deal to avert a U.S. government shutdown remains elusive as talks ended without an agreement and the House passed a dead-on-arrival GOP measure.
“We made some progress today” – President Barack Obama told reporters Thursday night following evening talks he had with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Vice President Joe Biden also took part.
“I’m not prepared to express wild optimism” – Obama said. “I think we are further along today than we were yesterday.”
Washington. Senators would have to push their own elevator buttons. House members would go without their free gym. Food on Capitol Hill would be sparse. And the lawmakers’ restrooms? Perhaps not as fresh.
Congress would feel the pinch of a government shutdown, but nowhere near the pain that would be inflicted on the massive federal workforce it is supposed to govern.
Unlike the roughly 800.000 federal workers who would be affected, lawmakers get wide latitude deciding who is essential and who’s not in the fiefdoms of their own offices and committees. They also get to choose whether to give up their own pay during a shutdown: an option not afforded the furloughed.
“How does that make any sense?” said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who added that he will forgo a paycheck for the length of a budget impasse. More than two dozen senators of both parties took the same pledge as the clocked Friday toward the midnight shutdown deadline.
The Constitution forbids lawmakers from changing their compensation or the president’s in midterm, which kicks into the political ether proposed legislation to force a pay holiday on Congress.
Rank-and-file House members and senators make 174,000 dollars a year, with the leaders of each party making more. President Barack Obama’s annual salary is 400,000 dollars.