Listening to the coverage of Trump’s offer to stop the government shutdown, I can’t help but recall the frequent reports that even in his personal business he unilaterally decided not to pay workers and forced them to sue him to attempt to recover the money. He’s literally now doing the same thing with the government and federal workers.
Apparently tigers do not change their stripes.
Hi Chris, do you have a link to stories indicating that POTUS is doing this?
Khurt, I’m drawing a broader analogy between his business practices, which were relatively widely reported during the election cycle, and some of what he’s doing with respect to the government shutdown. Because many of the 800,000+ government workers are actually working through furloughs without any pay, I view the actions as relatively equivalent. Some may get the backpay when the government reopens, but many won’t while others will have lost significant portions of their pay with the additional stress that goes with this.
Possibly worse, while he’s using these tactics (both in his own business and for political reasons), he doesn’t seem to have any empathy whatsoever for those who are affected.
I haven’t yet seen any direct reportage linking his two sets of behaviors, which seem very similar in form to me.
Since the reportage of government workers not being paid due to the government shutdown are rampant for the past month, I suspect you’re asking for references to his prior business behavior. Some of the best I had seen include a few of the following, though I’m sure there are many more as well as additional meta reportage:
Understood. I thought perhaps there was some official statement from POTUS. The situation has me nervous from a security standpoint. If DHS (TSA, Secret Service, US Coast Guard) workers have financial problems then they are at risk from outside influence. As I understand it, Secret Service workers and FBI may lose security clearances if they are financially at risk. Maybe the US Border and Customs agents as well.
NIST is also furloughed making it challenging to get NIST cyber-security documentation. The NIST website is in maintenance mode.
Perhaps this has been POTUS’s plan all along. Compromise the security of the USA to foreign interest by eradicating the nations public security aparatus.
Chris Aldrich says yesterday’s address by the President illustrates something similar to how Trump conducted business in the past by not paying workers and forcing them to take legal action if they wanted to get paid.
Shutting down the government as a negotiating tactic left a lot of workers unpaid and it’s being used to force others to compromise. Sadly, the one using such tactics is one who notoriously refuses to compromise and federal workers aren’t the only people being used as pawns in the negotiation.
Just watch (or read) the President Trump Announcement on Border Security and Government Shutdown. I think it shows the President conducting himself (and lying) the same way he always has to get what he wants. It may not be the same literally but it’s close enough for me. I agree with Chris.