U.S. legislators could use more skin in the shutdown game. The country’s government funding is set to lapse on Sunday after Republican Party infighting and quarrels with Democrats have all but eliminated the chances of heading off the latest budgetary impasse. Lawmakers will collect their salaries during the halt, however long it lasts, but nearly 1.5 million public workers will go without wages. Undoing this asymmetric outcome would help focus minds.
Nearly 800,000 federal employees will be furloughed without compensation, according to the latest indications. Another 660,000 civil servants will have to keep working, but they won’t get paid for their efforts until Congress strikes a deal. The average salary for a federal employee was already 24% lower than the private-sector equivalent last year, wider than 2021’s gap, according to the Federal Salary Council.
The $174,000 annual salaries paid to each of the 535 U.S. legislators, meantime, will be unaffected. Their median net worth is just over $1 million, according to the nonprofit research outfit OpenSecrets, so the paychecks are important to most of them. Making the debate more financially meaningful on a personal level would help cut through the political nonsense. (By Ben Winck)
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(Refiles to add link. The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are their own.)
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