Federal Workers Furloughed During Shutdown Get Double Pay

By now any sane person knows that the government shutdown occurred because Obama and the Senate refused to let go of Obamacare even though the American people have made it clear that we don't want it.

If you’ve been reading the news today, you’ve probably heard that the shutdown cost the government an extra $29 billion. That’s a head-scratcher, of course. If the government wasn’t working, how can it cost more? Surely it can’t cost $29 billion to do battle with 80 and 90 year old men at the World War II Memorial?

You’re right. Even President Spiteful’s machinations weren’t that expensive, although it can’t have been cheap to print signs and set up barriers all over America’s national parks. The real expense comes about because the 17% of the federal workforce that sat at home (or partied) the last two weeks got an extra two weeks’ paid vacation this year.

Yes, you read that right: It was a fully paid vacation, thanks to a unanimously passed House bill that promised to give the furloughed worker all their back pay, as if they actually had been laboring on behalf of the American people. American taxpayers are paying both for work that was done, or should have been done, and work that was not done.

But that’s only the beginning. Some workers didn’t just get an extra paid vacation. Instead, they’ve really hit the jackpot, although states, not the federal government, will be bearing this cost. According to Fox News, furloughed workers in Oregon are in line to receive double pay for their off time. The reason is that Oregon’s federal workers were able to obtain state unemployment benefits during the shutdown. Where the fun comes in for them is that they’re not going to have to be required to repay either Oregon or the federal government. It’s free money (if you ignore the fact that taxpayers are paying for it.)

It’s entirely possible that this same pattern will apply in other states. For example, during the shutdown, New Mexico reports that one-third of its new unemployment claims came from furloughed federal employees. In addition, Washington, D.C., and Maryland, which are federal employment hubs, paid out millions in unemployment benefits to furloughed workers.

Now I ask you, what about the millions of Americans in the private sector that have been permanently fired or had their hours cut because of Obamacare?