Saturday, January 20, 2018

WHO is holding servicemen hostage?


Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced a resolution that would have secured pay for service members, noting that Trump has been trying to divide the country by invoking the military and putting the blame on Democrats if they were to go unpaid in the event of a shutdown.

She then said, “I don’t want one moment to pass with there being any uncertainty of any soldier anywhere in the world that they will be paid for the valiant work they do on behalf of our national security.”

[...]

McConnell quickly objected to McCaskill’s resolution — and instead left military pay up in the air along with the other casualties of his party’s decision to grind the federal government to a halt.

[...]

The move was slammed by the military advocacy group VoteVets, who noted that Republicans were willing to use the military “as a prop” to attack Democrats, but when it came time to take substantive action, they dropped the ball.

Will Fischer, the organization’s director of government relations, noted that “veterans make up 1/3 of the entire federal workforce,” and that the Republican shutdown meant they would be “hit twice” because they will end up “missing paychecks and having benefits denied or delayed.”

In a statement to Shareblue Media, Fischer explained, “It gets harder and harder to believe that Donald Trump and the Republicans want anything other than a shutdown, when they make military pay a key talking point, but then block Democrats’ bill to make sure our military is paid, during a shutdown.”

[...]

In 2013, President Barack Obama signed legislation that ensured military pay would continue, uninterrupted by that year’s shutdown — which was also engineered by Republicans in Congress).

[...]

Republicans have shown their cards on the military, and have come down firmly against them. Now, they don’t even want to protect their pay.

  Shareblue
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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