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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, reservists drilling after
Friday will not be paid, and federal civilians who are required
to work during a shutdown also will not be paid, he said.
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.
“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.
—
Mike Pesoli contributed.
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