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Ritzy dinners and a dog's birthday party: Life's pretty normal for Congress and Trump despite shutdown
While thousands of federal workers go without pay, the government shutdown has had little impact on the day-to-day happenings on Capitol Hill and in the White House.
WASHINGTON — On Day 15 of the government shutdown, a U.S. senator hosted a well-attended birthday party for his bulldog.
Dozens of Hill staffers lined up inside the Capitol on Wednesday to wish Republican Sen. Jim Justice’s pup a happy birthday as she sat under a balloon arch wearing a pink and white hat. They noshed on cakes and dozens of cake pops shaped in 6-year-old Babydog’s likeness.
At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, President Donald Trump gathered some of the richest people in the country for dinner at the White House. There were beef Wellington, butterscotch ice cream and gold-rimmed china but no mention of the government shutdown during Trump’s 37-minute-long remarks thanking his guests for their donations for a new White House ballroom.
“This is really a knockout crowd,” Trump said Wednesday evening, noting that their collective donations have exceeded the ballroom’s $250 million price tag.
And so it has been for the power brokers in Washington during a government shutdown that appears to have no end in sight. While thousands of federal workers are furloughed — or fired — and trying to stay afloat without paychecks, the ones responsible for the shutdown are literally, and figuratively, eating cake.
The business-as-usual nature for elected officials in Washington, and some of their aides, is in contrast to the experience of others in the nation’s capital, where federal offices, as well as many parks, landmarks and museums, are closed, and of many people across the country. It also solidifies what now seems to be a bygone era of government shutdowns — one when elected officials wouldn’t want to be caught anywhere near parties or other nonessential indulgences.
“Everything still seems to be the same, except it’s not. Except most of these people aren’t getting paid,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told NBC News, noting that the Senate has continued its committee hearings, constituent meetings and normal voting schedules despite the shutdown. “I don’t think that’s right. I just don’t think that’s right. And so, yeah, it’s — and it just feels different than any other shutdown.”
The federal government has been shut down since Oct. 1 after Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and the president, couldn’t agree on a spending bill to keep it funded.
Lawmakers have since been working, to be sure. They’re delivering floor speeches blaming the opposing party for the shutdown and repeatedly casting votes on the same two resolutions to reopen the government that they know don’t have enough support. Some lawmakers have been having informal discussions about potential ways to break the logjam, but Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told NBC News on Thursday that while those talks had been “productive ... they’re done.” Members of Congress also continue to get paid, as their pay is protected under the Constitution.
But members of their staffs and the many people who keep the Capitol operating aren’t. A congressional staffer, who asked not to be named to protect their privacy, said that while Congress doesn’t seem to be in a big hurry to reopen the government, the shutdown is urgent for them and their family.
