Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz made a request of Congress on Tuesday that is pretty shocking for a politician. He asked that his own personal salary be withheld until Congress is able to pass an appropriations bill that will fund the government. We are currently facing a potential government shutdown if there is no agreement among lawmakers for funding before the Saturday deadline arrives.
According to Newsmax, Gaetz sent out a letter concerning his pay to chief administrative officer of the House of Representatives, Catherine Szpindor.
“It is my understanding that pursuant to the Constitution, members of Congress will continue to receive their pay during a lapse in appropriations,” Gaetz stated in the letter. “Therefore, I am requesting that in the case of a lapse of appropriations beginning at 12:00 a.m. on October 1, 2023, my pay be withheld until legislation has taken effect to end such lapse in appropriations in its entirety.”
“Gaetz, a critic of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has been adamant that the House needs to pass separate appropriations bills to keep the government funded and not continue to send billions of dollars to Ukraine,” Newsmax reported.
The Florida congressman, along with other key members of the House Freedom Caucus, have stated they do not support the stopgap continuing resolution that will keep the government funded on a temporary basis, a plan that has the full support of Speaker McCarthy.
Gaetz himself has issued several threats of filing a motion for McCarthy to leave his position. These two have been at each other’s throats ever since the beginning of the year when Republicans took over the House. McCarthy had agreed to meet specific demands when he was seeking to fill the position left by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, which included allowing any member to usher a vacate call.
“If the motion to vacate comes to the House floor for a vote, it would only need a simple majority to pass. Republicans currently control the House 221-212, so McCarthy can’t afford to lose more than four votes if he wants to keep his speaker’s gavel. Should McCarthy pursue the hard-right approach (spending cuts, conservative policy riders) favored by Gaetz and others, the legislation will be dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate,” the report stated.
Gaetz has made it clear that he does not want to see a government shutdown, but told the network last Friday that a “short, temporary shutdown,” could potentially be a good deterrent for future spending.
At the end of the day, our government is spending way, way too much money. That has been the case for a very long time. One great way to save some cash at the moment would be to stop sending so much aide to Ukraine, which we recently discovered is not being used just for bullets and bombs, but also for bailing out their economy.
Meanwhile, our nation’s economy is floating around the bottom of a massive toilet bowl, as President Joe Biden continues to flush and laugh hysterically at the water going swirly.
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