Photo credit: Congressman Glenn Grothman
With congressional Republicans falling all over themselves these days to support the nation’s worst president ever, it’s difficult for any of them to rise above their dreadful colleagues in sheer contempt for the innocent victims of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. That’s why Sixth District Wisconsin Congressman Glenn Grothman deserves special recognition.
Grothman was one of only seven congressmen, all Republicans, who were mean-spirited enough to vote against paying the 800,000 federal employees who’ve gone without pay during Donald Trump’s irrational government shutdown after it finally ends. Yes, that even includes the 420,000 federal employees who are being forced to work without pay during the shutdown as well as all those who have been locked out of their jobs.
Grothman was on the losing side of a 411-7 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on the pay resolution that then unanimously passed in the U.S. Senate. Grothman’s district includes some of Wisconsin’s wealthiest residents in River Hills and rural areas stretching north toward Green Bay and west toward Madison. But the lopsidedness of the House vote shows Grothman’s disdain for working people goes far beyond the extremism of most other rightwing Republicans.
Grothman’s open contempt for federal employees is an anachronism dating back nearly a quarter century to the first unsuccessful Republican government shutdown. That was in 1995-’96, when then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich was riding high, leading a Republican revolution against then-President Bill Clinton. It all started to unravel after Gingrich engineered a 21-day government shutdown, the longest in history until Trump’s. The shutdown was partially blamed for Democrats picking up House seats in 1998—a rare midterm gain for an incumbent president’s party. Gingrich was forced to resign as speaker that November; two months later, he resigned from Congress.
What I remember most about that ’95-’96 shutdown was all the chortling from Milwaukee’s rightwing radio hosts—Charley Sykes and Mark Belling—who couldn’t have cared less whether the government ever reopened to provide necessary public services. Rightwing talk shows thrive on inflaming public hatred toward government and its employees. Fortunately, in those days, the political influence of such shows was limited to a few dim-witted local aldermen. We’re in much more dangerous territory these days when a dim-witted president shuts down the government and demands billions to build a worthless wall after listening to Rush Limbaugh.
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He Doesn’t Pretend to Care
In every other Republican shutdown—including the first one that began the demise of Gingrich’s political career—Republicans at least pretended to care about American workers. That’s what makes Grothman’s nasty little band of opponents to paying federal workers so extreme. After all their hostages are released, Republicans have always joined Democrats to award back pay to federal workers locked out of their jobs through no fault of their own. Those are among the few times Republicans ever vote to ease the economic struggles of the working class. They’re usually too busy easing the tax burdens on millionaires and billionaires. But faking respect for American workers has become even more important for Republicans under Trump. That’s because some of the president’s strongest supporters are blue-collar, white workers fooled into believing a self-obsessed billionaire president whose first home is a gold-plated tower would ever give them a passing thought. He doesn’t.
Trump demonstrated how little he knows about real, live, working Americans when he publicly proclaimed most of the 800,000 federal employees going without pay support his government shutdown because they’d rather have a multibillion-dollar wall than a paycheck. All working people living paycheck-to-paycheck have to do to survive a shutdown Trump says could last for years is make a few adjustments. The Coast Guard even provided its employees with some helpful tips on how to survive without pay during a shutdown with no end in sight. They included: “Have a garage sale,” “Offer to watch children, walk pets or house-sit, “Turn your hobby into income” and “Become a mystery shopper.”
Grothman recruited only six other grinch congressmen to his caucus of the “worst of the worst” voting against ever allowing federal employees to recoup their wages. But, there are plenty of other rightwing Republicans relishing the current shutdown for exposing that nearly half of federal employees have been deemed by their departments as “non-essential.” If they could just fire half of all government employees, they could pass even more whopping tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.
Of course, in Trump’s corrupt government, “essential” is in the eye of the beholder. The bipartisan National Governors Association has warned states are about to run out of funds for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Meanwhile, hundreds of federal workers have been called back to work without pay in the Bureau of Land Management to speed approval of drilling permits for the oil and gas industry, which makes enormous contributions to political campaigns.
