Congress blames DOD when they wrote the Pay Our Military Bill?

Congress Blames Pentagon for Not Paying Civilians
Military.com
by Matthew Cox
Oct 11, 2013

Members of the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday accused the Pentagon of deliberately ignoring the Pay Our Military Act by keeping thousands of Defense Department civilians on furlough while the bulk of the workforce returned to work on Monday.

Defense Department officials said not so fast, however, telling lawmakers that the legislation -- which was hastily passed into law just hours before the government shutdown -- was not written clearly enough to cover some 40,000 civilian workers.

Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., said there was no need for the Pentagon to furlough hundreds of thousands of civilian workers when the government shutdown began Oct. 1. The Pay Our Military Act, a law that emerged from a bill Coffman sponsored three days before the shutdown began, was supposed to protect all DoD workers from furlough, Coffman said at an Oct. 10 hearing.

“My bill cast as wide a net as possible to ensure that the department’s civilian personnel -- all of whom are necessary to support military operations -- can report to work,” Coffman said. “On day one of the shutdown, the Pentagon furloughed the vast majority of its civilian workers in violation of the law.”

Robert Hale, the under secretary of defense, comptroller, said that just wasn’t possible under the Pay Our Military Act.
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