Axios (“Exclusive: White House finds 11th-hour shutdown workaround to pay troops — for now“):
President Trump’s budget team raided three different financial accounts to make sure U.S. troops are paid Friday as the government shutdown continues, White House officials tell Axios.
Why it matters: As long as military personnel are paid, Trump isn’t planning to budge on the nearly month-old shutdown, even with as many as 42 million people set to lose food stamp benefits Saturday.
Zoom in: Earlier in the week it was unclear whether the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) could find roughly $5.3 billion to make the military’s payroll by Friday, but two White House officials tell Axios the money was found at the last minute. The OMB found:
- $2.5 billion from a military housing fund specified in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act to continue paying housing allowances for military personnel.
- $1.4 billion from the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation fund, which largely will cover U.S. Army and Air Force payroll. The account normally funds military research and was heavily relied upon two weeks ago to cover military paychecks.
- $1.4 billion from a Defense Department procurement account for building U.S. Navy ships, largely to fund the Navy and Marines.
Zoom out: Democrats and liberal policy experts have accused the president of illegally usurping Congress’ powers to appropriate money, but Trump and his congressional allies believe their opponents won’t sue over work-arounds to pay the military because it would be too unpopular.
When the administration decided to pay troops with “available funds” midmonth, I observed, “Since neither Congressional Republicans (who constitute a majority in both Houses) nor the Republican-supermajority Supreme Court seem inclined to interfere, it appears that Trump has taken on near-complete control of the budget.” This simply extends that.
Most analysts thought the October 15 paycheck was a one-time trick, simply because there just isn’t that much money lying around that can be shifted. Apparently, we were wrong.
Meanwhile, some 730,000 federal civilians are working without pay while this continues. This includes a large number of defense department employees, including my wife and me. (Another 670,000 are furloughed and ostensibly guaranteed back pay.) As I’ve noted many times, the first missed paycheck for the armed forces will likely be the most significant impetus to get serious about negotiating out of this impasse.
