Congress could ensure the military gets paid next week even if the government remains shut down, but it doesn’t seem like that will happen.
“No, at this point,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, when asked whether there are active talks for a stand-alone bill that would approve pay for the military during the shutdown. “There are no discussions on anything at this point in time, right?”
“It’s hard to have a discussion when they’re not talking to us,” Duckworth added.
Sen. Kevin Cramer, a Republican, said talks about stand-alone military pay have happened before. This time, Cramer said he is “open” to the idea, but didn’t sound hopeful.
“The problem with it is Chuck Schumer can fix this,” Cramer told NOTUS. “Open the freaking government, and everybody gets paid. The idea that somehow we have to find a fix for these very, very important essential workers, heroes, frustrates me, because the fix is already obvious. Just do the right thing.”
Now in the second week of a government shutdown, lawmakers have not made progress on a compromise. The House has been out of town for three weeks, and the Senate appears likely to go home for the weekend. Republican and Democratic leadership openly admit they’re not talking to one another, even while federal workers’ paychecks are on the line.
Of all federal workers, members of the military, whose next paychecks were slated to be released on Oct. 15, are the most frequently invoked. The federal government is required to provide back pay to its workers, including military service members, once the shutdown is over. But that’s of little consolation to families who live on limited budgets.
To ensure pay goes out on time, lawmakers must reach a resolution by Oct. 13. Democrats and Republicans have used that date to emphasize the stakes of a shutdown lasting longer.
But lawmakers have an option to rectify that: They could pass a stand-alone piece of legislation to pay the military and perhaps other personnel, including air traffic controllers, without funding the rest of the government.
House Democrats pressed Speaker Mike Johnson to put that issue to a vote — a move that some Republicans support. In the Senate, Democrat Jack Reed has also pushed for a vote on military pay.
And there are plenty of lawmakers from both parties who appear to support a vote for stand-alone legislation, while trying to work out the rest.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Sen. Josh Hawley told NOTUS. “But I’m all in favor of paying our military. I mean, why is Congress getting paid, but the military is not getting paid, and our veterans can’t get access to care? I’m worried about people.”
President Donald Trump hasn’t sworn off the idea, either. When asked Wednesday about a stand-alone bill for military pay, he replied: “That probably will happen. We don’t have to worry about it yet. That’s a long time.”
He added: “You know what one week is? For me an eternity. One week for me is a long time. We’ll take care of it.”
But momentum is not on their side.
Johnson said the House will not return to session until Democrats agree to the GOP-led bill. He echoed that sentiment related to military pay on Wednesday, telling reporters: “The job in the House is done.”
Johnson said Democrats are “clamoring to get back here and have another vote because some of them want to get on record and say they’re for paying the troops.”
He added, “We already had that vote. It’s called the CR.”
In the Senate, Majority Leader John Thune has stuck to his strategy of putting the same Republican-led continuing resolution up for a vote almost every day the chamber has been in session. The bill failed for the sixth time on Wednesday, picking up no new Democratic or Republican votes. Thune has not shown signs of budging.
Senate Democratic leaders have not shown interest in separate legislation on military pay, either. When Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was asked whether he’d consider a standalone bill for military pay, he was noncommittal.
“Look, we want to see that the men and women of the armed services get paid,” Schumer told reporters on Wednesday. “The best way to do it is have Republicans sit down with us. When they’re serious about negotiating, we could get this done in a day or two and end the shutdown and pay the military.”
Lapsing paychecks could still be an inflection point. While the shutdown has wielded a variety of repercussions, including layoffs, the withdrawal of funding from projects in Democratic states and more, federal employees have in most cases not missed a paycheck yet.
After all, every shutdown has to be resolved. The 35-day government shutdown that began in December 2018 — the longest in American history — spared military pay because the Pentagon was funded. Air traffic controllers at that time broke the impasse.
When NOTUS asked Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin about military pay, he responded: “The last government shutdown under the first Trump administration came to an end when air traffic controllers said we’re going to call in sick. That did it almost overnight.”
He added: “There could be a tipping point as we move forward. I’m not sure what it is.”