Barack Obama: DHS impasse could mean 'end of a paycheck' for thousands
President Barack Obama hammered congressional Republicans again Monday for insisting on gutting his executive actions on immigration alongside a must-pass appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security â warning that a funding lapse would cut off paychecks for tens of thousands of critical government employees. It was similar to the message Obama delivered to House Democrats last week in Philadelphia, where the president seized on a quote from a POLITICO article in which a Republican lawmaker had said itâs not the âend of the worldâ if Congress fails to fund DHS by the Feb. 27 deadline. But this time, after a fact-checker dinged his Philadelphia speech, Obama didnât imply that Republicans donât care if Homeland Security stops âfunctioning.â Story Continued Below A funding lapse would still mean that paychecks will cease for tens of thousands of DHS workers, Obama said in a speech Monday at the departmentâs headquarters in northwest Washington. âWell, I guess literally thatâs true â it may not be the end of the world,â Obama said Monday. âBut until they pass a funding bill, it is the end of a paycheck for tens of thousands of front-line workers who will continue to â¦ have to work without getting paid.â The president noted that more than 40,000 border patrol and customs agents, 50,000 Transportation Security Administration airport screeners, 13,000 immigration officers and 40,000 Coast Guard employees â all of them considered essential employees â would have to work but not get paid once the deadline passes. âThese Americans arenât just working to keep us safe, they have to take care of their own families,â he said. âThe notion that they would get caught up in a disagreement around policy that has nothing to do with them makes no sense.â Obama added that a funding lapse would prevent the department from starting new agency initiatives âin the event that a new threat emerges.â Federal grants to state and local law enforcement would also stop, he said. âThe men and women of Americaâs homeland security apparatus do important work to protect us,â he said. âAnd Republicans and Democrats in Congress should not be playing politics with that.â Last weekâs POLITICO story reported that some top Republicans are increasingly unworried about missing the funding deadline, noting that DHSâs essential employees would stay on the job even if their paychecks are held up. In the October 2013 shutdown, about 85 percent of DHS workers still showed up to work. âIn other words, itâs not the end of the world if we get to that time because the national security functions will not stop â whether itâs border security or a lot of other issues,â Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said last week, though he stressed that Congress shouldnât ignore the deadline. In his speech Thursday at the House Democratsâ retreat, Obama said: âI disagree with any Republican who says letting funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapse is ânot the end of the world.â â¦ What do you mean, itâs not the end of the world? Thatâs all youâve been talking about. And now, suddenly, because you want to make a political point, you think that we can afford to have the Department of Homeland Security not functioning â because of political games in Washington?â FactCheck.Org said Friday that Obama had taken Diaz-Balartâs remarks out of context. âDiaz-Balart was clearly making the point that Homeland Security would continue functioning, even if the funding deadline is missed,â the nonpartisan organization wrote. The White House said Monday that Obama wasnât shifting the focus of his criticism. It pointed to comments last week from press secretary Josh Earnest that accused Republicans of âthreatening to say, âWeâre going to withhold paychecks from the people who are on the front lines keeping America safe.ââ âIâm not sure what you could do to more undermine the relationship between political leaders and law enforcement than to threaten to withhold their paychecks even while theyâre doing their job,â Earnest said last week. âThatâs not the proper way to show their support for them.â The Republican-controlled Senate will take a procedural vote Tuesday on the House-passed DHS funding measure â which aims to undo years of Obamaâs immigration policies. But the bill is expected to face unanimous Democratic opposition and will fail to advance.