As the country moves into its second month without government funding (30 days, 10 hours, and some minutes and seconds according to the official White House clock as I write this), President Trump has managed to pull the rabbit out of the hat for the second time. Unlike other federal employees, the US military will get paid on time and in full.
The Trump administration plans to pay military members Friday by using a mix of legislative and Defense Department funds, according to an official with the White House Office of Management and Budget.
It would be the second time the White House has been able to avoid missing a pay period for troops during the government shutdown, now in its 30th day. Service members are considered essential federal employees and are required to work during funding lapses, but essential workers typically aren't paid during shutdowns.
The message being sent by the White House is pretty straightforward. It is a statement that President Trump will continue to fund core government functions, despite the Democrats attempting to use the imposition of misery as "leverage" to reward their base.
SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER
“Every day gets better for us,”
HOUSE DEMOCRAT WHIP KATHERINE CLARK
HOUSE DEMOCRAT CAUCUS CHAIR PETE AGUILAR
“We understand this is not easy, and this is going to be painful…”
DEMOCRAT SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS
"If you reopen the government, we lose our leverage"
DEMOCRAT SENATOR CHRIS COONS
“… Frankly this is our only moment of leverage and although a very unpleasant tool to use…”
DEMOCRAT REP. EMILIA SYKES
DEMOCRAT SENATOR SHELDON WHITEHOUSE
[Shutting down the government is] “the only lever we have,"
SENATE DEMOCRAT SOURCE
“We would have enough votes if people were not terrified of getting the guillotine.”
UNNAMED DEMOCRAT SENATOR
“’People are going to get hammered’ if they vote for the House-passed bill to reopen the government.”
To be clear, the military has missed paydays in past shutdowns. In 1877, the Armed Forces served for five months without pay due to an impasse in Congress over ending Reconstruction.
Instead of applauding the contortions President Trump is going through to keep the young soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardians of the Armed Forces paid, the left has decided to go with "it is illegal."
When you want anti-Trump invective masquerading as legal reasoning, you can't do better than consulting Lawfaremedia.org.
How, then, were the troops paid?
The answer is troubling. To make these payments, President Trump used research and development (R&D) money that the Department of Defense had left over from last fiscal year—an action that was patently illegal.
In addition to being illegal, the move was also unnecessary. There is overwhelming support in Congress to enact legislation to pay the military. But instead of taking the legal, straightforward path to paying the troops (as in the 2013 Obama shutdown, when a law was enacted to pay the troops on the eve of the shutdown), the Trump administration opted for an illegal strategy because Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had adjourned the House of Representatives on Sept. 19, sending its members home and refusing to reopen the House for business. (Note that no action was required to pay the military during either the 1995 Clinton shutdown or the 2018-2019 Trump shutdown because in each case the defense appropriations bill had already been enacted.)
The writer, a functionary in the Autopen-Harris White House, goes on to describe how the Republic and Western Civilization will fall unless the maximum number of people possible are hurt by Democrat intransigence. While he blames Speaker Mike Johnson for the lack of a standalone bill to pay the Armed Forces, that is just a lie. A bill was introduced in the Senate to do exactly that, and Democrats voted it down.
Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-sponsored bill Thursday to pay active-duty members of the military and other essential federal employees who have been required to work during the government shutdown.
Democrats blocked the Shutdown Fairness Act of 2025, sponsored by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), in a mostly party-line 54-45 vote. It needed 60 votes to advance.
The rant concludes with this:
Across billions of dollars of impoundments, Antideficiency Act violations (including the largest in history), purpose statute violations, taking down the apportionment website (it is currently back online after a court case), and other actions, the Trump administration has seemingly undertaken the most illegal set of budgetary actions in history. Guardrails, new civil penalties, and expanded judicial standing are needed to restrain and penalize the White House’s budget malfeasance.
This budgetary impasse exists for one reason. The Democrats. They were offered a clean continuing resolution, but that wasn't enough. As many of them have stated, they are using the government shutdown to inflict pain on Americans to get their way. To the extent that a Constitutional crisis exists, it is because of the failure of Congressional Democrats to act like adults and citizens rather than a disloyal Fifth Column hellbent on inflicting damage on America.
Trump may be violating a non-criminal statute. Fine. I've always been much more of an "ask forgiveness, not permission" kind of guy myself. Plus, there is no doubt that if a proposal to reprogram existing funds to cover a military payday were put before Congress for a vote, it would pass. If, going forward, Democrats know that Republicans will keep essential government operations "by any means necessay," to coin a phrase, then they will be much less likely to pull this stunt.
Back to the matter at hand, I really hope that Congressional Democrats pick up the theme of "Trump broke the law to pay the troops" and run with it. I hope we see ads on television and the internet making that claim. Because I don't think they've thought through how it will play when they come out in favor of not paying the troops and punishing the people who are trying to keep them housed and fed.
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