But that was the suggestion of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Thursday, who said he did not understand why federal workers who will miss a paycheck for a second time this month on Friday would turn to services like food banks.His net worth is something over $2 billion.
“The obligations that they would undertake — say borrowing from a bank or credit union — are in effect federally guaranteed,” Mr. Ross told Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times on CNBC. Credit unions serving public employees are offering “very, very low-interest-rate loans” and banks are also willing to lend, he said.
“True, the people might have to pay a little bit of interest, but the idea that it’s paycheck or zero is not a really valid idea,” Mr. Ross said.
Then there's Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow who said that those furloughed are "volunteering" in fact:
Larry Kudlow's net worth is a paltry $2 million.Q: "That's not volunteering if you're being forced to work without pay. If you don't show up you lose your job. That's not volunteering…"— CSPAN (@cspan) January 24, 2019
Larry Kudlow: "I'm not even going to go there. You know what I'm saying. It's very clear..." pic.twitter.com/w1CNOmafBZ
Then there's the man himself, defending Wilbur Ross:
When questioned about Ross' comments, Trump said that he hadn't heard the statement but he felt that Ross could have phrased his answer better.Yea, so if you're a furloughed government employee who has bills to pay and mouths to feed (and no government pay check due to Trump's shutdown) you should have no problem getting your bank or grocery store to "work along" with you on your Trump-induced debts, right?
However, Trump continued on with his answer, telling reporters gathered for a media briefing that unpaid federal workers should be able to get assistance from banks and grocery stores.
"Local people know who they are when they go for groceries and everything else," Trump said. "So I think what Wilbur was probably trying to say was that they will work along — I know banks are working along. If you have mortgages, the mortgagees, the folks collecting the interest and all of those things, they work along. And that's what happens in a time like this, they know the people, they've been dealing with them for years, and they work along. The grocery stores...and I think that's probably what Wilbur Ross meant."
And about that loan that Ross suggested, here's something interesting (see what I did there?) from the Washington Post:
The Commerce Department’s federal credit union is charging furloughed employees almost 9 percent interest on emergency loans to cover their missing paychecks, despite Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross saying Thursday that financial institutions were offering “very, very low-interest-rate loans to bridge people over the gap.”What can I say?
MAGA!
Shame on every Congressional Republican (EVERY. CONGRESSIONAL. REPUBLICAN.) who continues to support this idiotic and insulting administration.
Our betters in the public service caste deserve the 0 interest loans they are getting.
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