Military veterans in Congress sound alarm on troop shutdown hardship

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Military personnel are set to miss their first paycheck as the government shutdown continues, raising concerns among House Republicans that it could hurt mission readiness with no solution in sight.

Veteran lawmakers have begun sending warning signals about the military’s ability to perform if servicemembers are spending time worrying about not receiving a paycheck come Oct. 15, the first day a paycheck could be skipped since the beginning of the shutdown. 

This milestone has increased pressure on House GOP leadership to bring back the lower chamber in efforts to find a solution, because it will be one of the first real-life impacts on the American people outside of the political beltway, made up of the areas near Washington.

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“I remember going through a shutdown,” Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), a former Air Force officer and chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said on Friday. “And the thing that happens during that time is that you can’t focus on the mission. You can’t focus on the worldwide threat that we face or threats that we face. Instead, our commanders today are having to focus on whether or not junior enlisted and, quite frankly, all of their personnel are going to be able to make ends meet.”

On Thursday, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) became the first of House GOP leadership to call for a vote on the Pay Our Troops Act, a bill sponsored by Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA) that would continue to provide military personnel with their paychecks as many agencies continue to see or will see their payments stall.

“Our troops don’t get to stop doing their jobs when the government shuts down, and they shouldn’t have to worry about whether they’ll be able to pay their bills,” Kiggans told the Washington Examiner.

“I am encouraging Speaker Johnson to bring the Pay Our Troops Act and the Pay Our Public Shipyard Workers Act up for a vote,” Kiggans added. “As President Trump has stated repeatedly, our troops must get paid.”

The government shut down on Oct. 1 following Congress’s failure to pass a bill to fund the government as the fiscal year closed. The House passed a short-term spending bill that goes until Nov. 21 last month in efforts to avert the government shutdown, but the bill has yet to reach the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. 

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has unequivocally said he will not put a stand-alone bill on the floor, further emphasizing that all of the pressure should remain on the upper chamber to pass the House-passed spending bill.

Even after his own rank-and-file members have called for the House to vote on a standalone bill, Johnson remains unwilling to give Democrats a chance to vote on the stand-alone legislation, saying it would be a “show vote” for political cover. 

“The House passed a clean non-partisan CR three weeks ago today to keep the government funded and, by extension, to pay our troops, TSA agents, and border patrol agents, and air traffic controllers, and the rest of our federal workforce,” Johnson reiterated at a press conference Friday.

Johnson has kept the House in recess for the entirety of the shutdown, arguing the House “did its work,” as Democrats have called on the speaker to bring back his caucus and “get back to work.” 

Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA), who represents a district in California with military bases, expressed his support for Kiggans’s bill Friday as he called out House leadership for not allowing a vote. 

“The sad thing is, we’re not there to have those, those bipartisan discussions, so part of the strategy for Mike Johnson and keeping his members home for weeks on end is to consolidate power,” Levin told the Washington Examiner. 

“We really do need to be there in the building, and the fact that he’s just kept his folks home really is indicative of his very fragile hold on leadership.” 

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) replied to Stefanik’s post on X, calling for a vote on the bill, saying he agrees with her. Going on to ask her, “Will you ask Republican leadership to convene Congress so we can vote on this?”

Pfluger pushed back on calls from Democrats to come back to the capital, instead arguing that Democrats need to be in their districts facing constituents impacted by the shutdown.  

“Why are they charading and parading around Washington, D.C., and instead of going to military bases and truly getting a sense at those bases for the pain that they are inflicting upon our junior enlisted?” Pfluger said. 

Meanwhile, the White House does not seem poised to bail out Congress by pushing for a stand-alone bill to fund the troops. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that passing a stand-alone bill “probably will happen.”

But White House officials seem to be ruling out that option for now, looking at other ways to address the problem. 

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“Democrats shut down the government because they want to provide free health care to illegal aliens – even if it means withholding pay from troops who put their lives on the lines for our country,” a White House official told the Washington Examiner. “To save our military servicemembers from Democrats’ far-left priorities, the White House is exploring every legal maneuver and option at our disposal to get our troops paid during the Democrat Shutdown.”

Officials told Politico that the administration is weighing using tariff revenue to cover the Oct. 15 military paychecks. 

Naomi Lim contributed to this report.

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