Stateliners Agree: No Budget Equals No Pay in Washington, D.C.
By: Matt Mershon
Updated: January 18, 2013
ROCKFORD - It's an old
expression: hard work pays off. However
if you do no work, should you still get paid?
Some house republican leaders say if our nation's leaders can't reach a
deal on the budget that our representation in
"It's a sad state
of affairs if the only way that you can get the United States Congress today to
do something is to threaten to take money out of their wallet," said Sen. Dean
Heller of Nevada. Heller is the author
of the "No Budget, No Pay" bill that originally surfaced in the house back in
2011. The bill sheds a sad light on the
political indifference in
"They're not doing
what we need them to do even though we elected them into office," said Cheryl
Schmidt expressing her support for the bill.
Carla Shewmon says
her husband might lose his job if the
"Let them see what
it's like to go without getting money like a lot of us other people are doing,"
said Shewmon.
Chester Zapatka is
a maintenance man and says he doesn't get paid when he doesn't work.
"If they're not
doing their job they shouldn't get paid either," said Zapatka.
The "No Budget, No
Pay" bill stems from the organization called No Labels, a bipartisan group urging today's politicians to put party
differences aside. On Friday, House Speaker
John Boehner (R) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R) announced their
support for the plan. Representative
Adam Kinzinger (R) is a member of the No
Labels organization and he says he's throwing his support behind, "No
Budget, No Pay," too.
"I wish we never
had to go to this kind of length but again over the last four years we haven't
been able to get a budget out of the Senate and that's required by law," said
Rep. Kinzinger.
"Every year you're
supposed to produce a budget on April 15th, so I think we have to
take an unfortunately drastic step in order to try and guarantee that the
Senate actually does its job."
Since
Representative Cheri Bustos (D) is a newcomer to Congress, she isn't familiar
with the "No Budget, No Pay," proposal, however she did release this statement:
"Like
middle class families do across our region, I believe that Congress needs to do
its job by passing a budget and living within it. That's what I support a 10% pay cut for
members of Congress and no pay raises until lawmakers get their act together
and pass a budget."
If the "No Budget,
No Pay" measure were to pass, the nation's debt deadline would change from
mid-February to mid-April, giving legislators more time to prevent default on
America's loans and pass a balanced budget.
