RAW STORY
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel slammed Republican lawmakers as
“astoundingly irresponsible” for threatening to shut down the government
over a short-sighted political whim.
If Congress fails to agree on a new budget measure by the close of
the fiscal year on Monday, officials estimate that about half of the
Pentagon’s nearly 800,000 civilian workers would be placed on unpaid
leave.
The US military’s nearly 1.4 million troops would stay on the job but without pay.
“When
you look at the greatest democracy in the world, the largest economy in
the world putting our people through this, that’s not leadership,
that’s abdication of responsibilities,” Hagel told reporters on his
plane as he headed to South Korea.
“This is an astoundingly irresponsible way to govern.”
Hagel, a former Republican US senator from Nebraska who enlisted to
serve as a soldier in the Vietnam War, denounced those lawmakers who
“want to hold the nation hostage to whatever political price they want.”
He was referring to far-right tea party lawmakers who insisted they
would not support a budget to fund the government if it finances
President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care reform.
“It is dangerously short-sighted and irresponsible, because what will
this lead to in the United States of America if this continues is we
will have a country that’s ungovernable,” Hagel said.
He expressed hope that there would be enough lawmakers who would find
common ground to fund the government and avert a potentially
catastrophic shutdown.
The
House of Representatives was due to vote later Saturday on a Republican
plan that keeps government open through mid-December while delaying
implementation of Obama’s health care law.
The White House has vowed to veto any such bill.
Federal agencies have made plans to furlough all non-essential
employees starting Tuesday, the first day of the 2014 fiscal year,
barring a vote in both chambers of Congress to fund the government
beyond Monday night.
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