Trump to attempt to deny furloughed workers back pay in violation of law he signed

It’s a working class party now:

Hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers may not automatically receive back pay once the government reopens, President Trump signaled on Tuesday, prompting renewed fears that the administration might try to circumvent federal law and maximize the pain of the shutdown.

The president’s comments, which echoed a draft memo that has circulated at the White House, contradicted the administration’s own guidance that furloughed employees would receive retroactive pay shortly after Congress strikes a funding deal.

Following the longest shutdown in history — a five-week closure that began under Mr. Trump at the end of 2018 — Congress adopted a law that guaranteed back pay for the millions of federal workers who often bear the financial brunt of funding lapses. That measure, known as the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, applied not only to that closure but also future fiscal lapses, quelling a major source of uncertainty for federal workers caught in the political fray.

Mr. Trump signed that measure into law in 2019. But his administration six years later now appears to have interpreted its guarantees much differently.

“Interpreted its guarantees much differently” is…a way to put “ignoring the law completely to try to get Senate Democrats to vote for a terrible bill with no concessions.”