Republicans’ decision to abandon a congressional spending plan will cost about 2.1 million troops their paychecks over the holidays unless some agreement is reached before Friday's deadline to prevent a government shutdown, the Pentagon warned.
Even if they don’t get paid, those troops will be required to report for duty both overseas and at home, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Thursday.
Without an agreement to fund the government, troops will not receive their end-of-month paychecks and reservists drilling after Friday will not be paid, he said.
In addition, about 365,000 Defense Department civilians will be required to work without pay if the government is shut down, according to defense officials. Most are deemed essential because they work in critical national security jobs. An additional 435,500 civilians would be furloughed.
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The military payroll is just one of thousands of federal accounts that would be affected, but one of the most visible.
Congress was on the verge of passing a stopgap measure on Wednesday to keep the government running when President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk used Musk’s social media platform X to attack the 1,500-page bill over its unrelated spending add-ons and threaten any Republican lawmaker who supported its passage. Support for the bill quickly failed.
House Republicans were scrambling late Thursday to get an agreement on an alternative.
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“I think a shutdown deprives the military of a paycheck," Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee told reporters as he walked into House Speaker Mike Johnson's office late Thursday. “So the last thing we want to do is shut down the government.”
House Democrats, however, had already begun to say the new slimmed-down spending plan was untenable.
The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Trump was aware that his stand on the bill could result in the military not being paid.
Other civilian personnel deemed not essential to immediate military operations will be furloughed, Ryder said.
In previous shutdowns Congress has worked to secure troop pay, but not everyone was covered. In 2019, members of the Coast Guard were left out and went more than a month without pay.
“A lapse in funding will cause serious disruptions across the Defense Department and is still avoidable," Ryder said.
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Mike Pesoli contributed.
