The Item - Mulvaney Says Shaw Civilian Furloughs Weren't Necessary

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By Braden Bunch

U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., said Thursday he fully expects the civilian employees recently furloughed at Shaw Air Force Base to be paid for the four days they were absent and that a law passed the day before the federal shutdown should have prevented the furloughs from happening in the first place.

"We thought that the bill that we had passed the day before the government shutdown covered all civilian employees. It was intended to cover all civilian employees. It took the Defense Department a week to determine it covered all civilian employees, and it did," Mulvaney said.

In addition, the congressman from Indian Land said not only should those civilians not have gone on furlough, but also that "they're going to get paid for those four days."

The recent furloughs for civilian employees at Shaw Air Force Base, as well as other military installations across the state, triggered outcries from state politicians. This was especially true for state Democrats, accusing the Republican-dominated delegation of acting in a way that was harmful to the state's economy and military personnel.

Last week, state Sen. Thomas McElveen called for "Congress to give partisan bickering a rest and get to work doing the people's business," adding the South Carolina delegation was "causing problems for people back in their home districts."

The attacks from state Democrats continued Thursday when state House minority leader Todd Rutherford, D-Columbia, said the South Carolina delegation was practicing a "strategy of holding the government hostage in order to refight the battle over the Affordable Care Act." In his release, Rutherford singled out several congressmen by name, including Mulvaney.

Speaking from Washington, D.C., as the federal shutdown entered its 10th day, Mulvaney said the recent temporary furlough of civilian employees at Shaw was simply a case of a slow-moving government.

"As the folks in the military know, the Pentagon is a bureaucracy, there's no question," Mulvaney said, adding the law meant to keep civilian military employees at their posts passed unanimously in the House and Senate and was immediately signed by President Obama before the Oct. 1 deadline.

"There's enough up here that we disagree on. To get bogged down on something that everybody agrees on is just crazy," Mulvaney said. "Everybody agrees the civilian employees should have been working from day one."

And while there are definite differences forcing the continuation of the shutdown, Mulvaney said members of both parties in the House and Senate were working toward resolution but were being impeded by the blatant political maneuvers by Obama.

"It's a level of demagoguery that we don't see amongst ourselves, the rank and file, between House Democrats and House Republicans, or even between the House and Senate," Mulvaney said. "He's calling us kidnappers and saying we're trying to hold him hostage. There were some comparisons by various members of the White House leadership calling us terrorists, and that's just absurd. That's bizarre, and it's unheard of, and it demeans the office, and it does not help the discussion."

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