One of President Donald Trump’s top economic advisers on Friday urged federal workers who will be missing a paycheck due to the ongoing government shutdown to ask their superiors for guidance on how to access loans and other aid he claimed is available to them.
National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett told reporters at the White House that he and other administration officials “really feel for” the 750,000 federal civil servants who aren’t getting paid. That’s becuase because the Republican-controlled House and Senate have failed to pass legislation to fund the government over the 24 days since the last fiscal year ended and forced agencies to furlough all but the most essential employees and force those still on the job to work without pay.
“We would urge people to call their supervisors, because there are things that are available, like credit loans at zero interest for people that are in the situation,” Hassett said.
He claimed the ongoing shutdown situation is “not really acceptable to us” and blamed Senate Democrats — who do not hold a majority in the upper chamber — for refusing to vote for a GOP-authored stopgap bill to fund the government through mid-November.
The three-week-long impasse stems from Republicans’ refusal to consider extending health insurance tax credits that have kept premiums for millions of Americans at a reasonable rate. Without such an extension, insurance companies have signaled intent to raise rates for those using Affordable Care Act exchange marketplaces to buy coverage by as much as double or triple last year’s rates.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the House out of session for the last month as a way of applying pressure to senators to accept the House-passed stopgap bill, and to prevent a potentially embarrassing vote on releasing Justice Department files on the deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Because the Senate’s rules require a 60-vote supermajority to advance most legislation, Democrats have largely declined to lend their support to the GOP bill without provisions to extend the health insurance tax credits at issue.
Most public polling in recent weeks shows a majority of Americans blame Republicans for the funding impasse more than Democrats, but Hassett claimed the situation is entirely in the Democratic Party’s lap.
“The fact is that the Democrats in the Senate are no longer a moderating force in this country. They're not adhering to a constitutional duty to be a moderating force. And the people that are furloughed are not being paid right now,” he said.
