Should Active Duty Military Personnel Get Paid During the Shutdown? (H.R. 4793)

What is H.R. 4793?

(Updated April 17, 2021)

This bill — known as the Pay Our Troops Act — would ensure that military personnel are paid during any lapse in funding that causes a partial government shutdown during fiscal year 2018. It would provide pay to active duty members of the Armed Forces; the reserves for any inactive duty training during the period; along with civilian personnel and contractors at the Dept. of Defense (DOD) and the Dept. of Homeland Security (in the Coast Guard’s case) who the agency’s respective secretary determines are providing support to active duty military personnel.

Funds made available under this authority would be available until whichever of the following occurs first:

• The enactment of appropriations to fund the military;

• The enactment of the applicable regular or continuing appropriations;

• January 1, 2019.

Argument in favor

Active duty military personnel put their lives on the line to defend our nation. They and their families shouldn’t have to worry about getting paid late because Congress can’t get its act together and this ensures their financial security isn’t undermined by a government shutdown.

Argument opposed

If other federal employees are being furloughed and have to wait for back pay because of the government shutdown, active duty military personnel and civilian workers that support them should be in the same position.

Impact

Active duty military personnel; civilian workers supporting active duty personnel; reserve forces doing inactive training; their families; and Congress.

Cost of H.R. 4793

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Sponsoring Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) introduced this bill to ensure that active duty military personnel and civilian workers who support them are paid during a government shutdown. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis offered the following statements this week with respect to the effect of a shutdown:

“We do a lot of intelligence operations around the world, and they cost money. Those obviously would stop. And I will tell you training for almost our entire reserve forces will stop. And you must understand the critical importance of our reserves. They are the only shock absorber we have. It’s got a huge morale impact. How long can you keep good people around when something like this happens is always a question that has to hover in the back of my mind.”

As hard as the last 16 years of war have been, no enemy in the field has done more harm to the readiness of the U.S. military than the combined impact of the Budget Control Act’s defense spending caps, and 9 of the last 10 years operating under Continuing Resolutions, wasting copious amounts of precious taxpayer dollars. As I stand here this morning, watching the news off the Hill, we’re on the verge of a government shutdown or, at best, yet another debilitating continuing resolution. We need Congress back in the driver’s seat of budget decisions, not in the spectator’s seat of the Budget Control Act’s indiscriminate and automatic cuts.”

Media:

• Washington Examiner