Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated Sunday that service members will miss paychecks by Nov. 15 if the federal government shutdown stretches on, regardless of the Trump administration’s earlier assurances that members of the army will probably be paid amid the funding lapse.
“I feel we’ll be capable of pay them starting in November, however by Nov. 15 our troops and repair members who’re keen to threat their lives aren’t going to have the ability to receives a commission,” Bessent stated on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
President Trump directed the Pentagon to make use of unspent analysis and growth funds to pay the army earlier this month, with round $8 billion in funds from the earlier fiscal 12 months recognized to cowl the mid-month paychecks. However officers have warned that the transfer was a brief repair, and that members of the army risked lacking their subsequent paychecks on the finish of the month, and past, if the shutdown continues.
Bessent recommended that members of the army will obtain their upcoming paycheck, however he warned that if the shutdown continues, the U.S. can be unable to pay the service members by mid-November.
“What a humiliation,” Bessent stated, placing the blame on Democratic leaders in Congress who he claimed are “frightened about their primaries, and never the American folks.”
Democrats and Republicans have been locked in a stalemate over the best way to fund the federal government for weeks as Democrats have demanded an extension of medical health insurance tax credit as a situation for reopening the federal government. In the meantime, Republicans have been clear that they’re keen to debate the well being care situation, however solely as soon as the federal government reopens, regardless of Democrats’ repeated requests for negotiations.
Requested about the potential for a gathering between the president and leaders in Congress after a request from Democrats final week, Bessent stated “I do not know what good it does.”
“It is a Democratic-led boycott, and I am simply unsure what they’re doing,” Bessent added.
The treasury secretary warned that the shutdown is “beginning to have an effect on the economic system,” urging reasonable Democrats to “be heroes” by breaking with their occasion to vote in favor of the Home-passed measure to reopen the federal government that has fallen in need of the 60 votes wanted a dozen occasions within the Senate.
Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries additionally appeared on “Face the Nation” on Sunday and stated “there’s an pressing must reopen the federal government.”
“Which is why we proceed to demand that Republicans sit on the negotiating desk so we will enact a spending settlement that is bipartisan in nature,” Jeffries, a New York Democrat, stated. “That is what we have referred to as for from the very starting.”
On the well being care situation, Jeffries stated Democrats “want motion, not merely phrases” or a “wing and a prayer promise” from Republicans.
