Five minutes after federal employees didn’t get their first paycheck Friday from the shutdown, the media meltdown about starving workers went full blast along with moaning and the gnashing of teeth over tax returns, food stamps and closed parks.
There’s been hardly any mention of the legislation Congress also passed last week to pay back all affected workers as soon as the government reopens, regardless of their scheduled pay dates.
That means the 420,000 federal employees deemed essential and still working will be paid for their work.
And, it also means the 380,000 employees not working because of the shutdown, will also get paid through that time period for not working.
The media likes to call them furloughed workers, but when businesses are forced to furlough workers, those employees don’t get paid.
So they’re not really furloughed workers so much as they are on paid vacations and their checks are three days late so far.
We are sympathetic to all the workers for getting late paychecks, and of course it means hardship for many, but it’s nowhere near the catastrophe being portrayed by the Trump-hating media.
As for the closed parks, sidelined recreation is not exactly the end of the world. And it turns out food stamps were actually issued earlier than usual, while tax returns will be handled per usual — about four weeks after we ask for our money back.