Meanwhile, White House officials have faced backlash for an apparent lack of empathy toward unpaid government workers. In a CNBC interview Thursday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said he does not “really quite understand” why government workers are going to food banks when they could take out loans.
Democrats, who have highlighted the plight of government employees as polls show most Americans blame Trump for the shutdown, pounced on his comments Thursday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the remark as a “let them eat cake” attitude.
Then, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said that the workers are “volunteering” because “they believe government service is honorable and they believe in President Trump and they’re working as hard as ever.”
The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request to comment on the perceived lack of empathy or the potential for government workers to leave their jobs.
Trump has repeatedly said many federal employees agree with him on border security and believe in his push to build the proposed wall. The AFGE representative estimated that only a “tiny, tiny percentage” of federal employees agree with the president’s tactics.
The White House and Congress had failed for weeks to break an impasse over Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion to construct the barrier. On Thursday, two bills to reopen the government — one with funds for the wall and another without — failed in the Senate.
A Democratic-backed measure to temporarily fund the government, which the president threatened to veto, earned more votes in the GOP-held Senate than a Trump-backed plan. While neither of the proposals ended the impasse, the votes appeared to kick-start the first serious negotiations in weeks.
Republicans, likewise, have tried to put pressure on Democrats by proposing bills to pay government workers who are not receiving paychecks. Democrats have rejected those proposals, urging the GOP to reopen the government, which would ensure the employees get paychecks. It is unclear how the GOP proposals would ensure people get paid if Congress does not pass appropriations bills.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer talked about a way out of the closure Thursday as senators from both parties called for a short-term plan to fund the government for three weeks. Trump said he would support such a plan, but only if he got a “down payment” on the wall. Pelosi called any funding for the barrier a nonstarter.
Until Friday’s resolution, it wasn’t certain how long the shutdown would have lasted, or what level of pain for government workers would force lawmakers to end it. The fact that a political fight, rather than the merits of their work, caused federal employees to go without pay could make them even more disillusioned, the Partnership for Public Service’s Stier said.
“They’re in their jobs because they care about the missions of the organizations they’re working for,” he said. “The worst thing you can do is say, ‘you can’t do what you care about.’ Particularly when it’s saying that you can’t do what you came to work for, not because of your work, but because of some political fight.”
from Update News Zone http://bit.ly/2G8fRcL
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