With the federal government facing a shutdown, The American Legion calls on Congress to approve a spending plan for entire fiscal year, or if failing that, a continuing resolution. T
Dear American Legion Family members and friends,
Once again, we find ourselves on the precipice of a politically charged government shutdown.
The federal government may shut down if a Continuing Resolution (CR) is not passed before the current one expires on Friday.
If Congress does not act this week, the CR’s expiration serves as a grave threat to our national security, military readiness, and other core issues for veterans, servicemembers and their families. And that, of course, comes on top of the threat of cutbacks at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that I wrote about last week.
But, once again, we are forced to call for a CR to avoid a government shutdown, which is the greater of two evils. With a shutdown, our Coast Guard members may go without pay as they did during the longest government shutdown in January 2019.
This time, there is hope that our troops would be paid. That is thanks to a measure, introduced last week by Navy veteran Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va. Her bill would ensure paychecks continue for members of the military, including the Coast Guard, as well as some Defense Department civilian employees and contractors in the event of a funding lapse.
We hope it does not come to that.
The American Legion calls on our members of Congress to abandon political posturing, focus on doing what is right for America, its military members and their families.
I am calling on Congress to pass this CR and move to negotiating an actual spending bill to ensure our military is properly funded through FY25 and FY26.
- Commander