Don't Worry America, Congress Will Still Get Paid During Government Shutdown Over Ladies & Their Lady Parts

Just in case you were concerned about how Michele Bachmann, John Boehner, John McCain, Joe Wilson, that Nelson nutjob from Nebraska, and all the rest of the lunatic wingnuts comprising America's esteemed 112th Congress are going to survive the Great Government Shutdown of 2011, fear not my friends! They can still get paid, and probably will too, because unpaid furloughs are for losers and poors like teachers and police officers, not millionaire legislators charged with the difficult task of deciding what a woman can and cannot do with her sinful, lust-filled body.

About 800,000 federal workers would be sent home without pay if Congress fails to negotiate a budget deal by Friday night. But whether lawmakers would require themselves to take the same medicine is unclear.

Under House rules, lawmakers have the authority to determine who on their staffs would remain at work as "essential'' employees and who would be furloughed during a shutdown."

Oooh, oooh, please say prostitutes, mistresses, exotic escorts, and underage senate pages qualify as essential!

Lawmakers would continue to get paid during a shutdown, unless the full Congress voted otherwise. Both the House and Senate have voted to suspend their own pay during a shutdown, but as part of legislation that has not passed the other chamber, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Well I should certainly hope so! What the hell does this look like, Soviet Russia or something?

But just in case of the off chance that filthy rich, striking politicians continuing to get paid while shutting down operations may look bad to the average schlub, some noble legislators have suggested doing something else with the money (they don't need anyway), like skipping their salaries, shooting the paycheck with a .308 Winchester rifle, or maybe even giving it to gross "charity" or whatever.

On Thursday, some lawmakers said they didn’t believe they should keep their salaries during a shutdown. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, urged his colleagues to return such pay to the Treasury or give it to charity. “I can’t imagine that the president, vice president or any member of Congress—Republican or Democrat—thinks they should get paid when the government has shut down,” Mr. Manchin said.

Poor U.S. representatives! How on God's once-green Earth will they make do on their stock dividends, corporate speaking fees, PAC petty cash accounts, and trust funds alone? Oh, the humanity!

Luckily, their "essential" staffers will still be around to sign for the unmarked boxes of freshly squeezed poor people's tears, tightly packed placentas fresh from the womb, and plentiful stacks of oil-dipped hundred dollar bills courtesy of the Koch brothers.

From TPM:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has laid a final offer at Republicans' feet, and it will require them to drop their insistence on defunding Planned Parenthood, and accepting what Reid insists is an agreed upon level of spending cuts. If Republicans don't take it, and if Reid's not bluffing, the government will shutdown.

"The number we're not bending on," he told reporters in a press briefing Friday morning. "We're not bending on that and we're not bending on women's health."

The ball is effectively now in House Speaker John Boehner's court. Republicans have signaled a willingness to drop the Planned Parenthood rider in exchange for more spending cuts. But Reid says they've agreed on cut number — $78 billion below President Obama's budget request last year, or about $38 billion off current spending.

Not that it's even about budget cuts or reducing spending at this point. A few billion here, a few billion there. Yawn. What's the diff, right?

C'mon, didn't you people learn anything? It is always about abortion! Even if the Democrats do the unthinkable and cave in to the ludicrous amount of cuts Republicans want to make, everyone knows the GOP will still insist on using it's big orange Boehner to stick in policy riders to defund Planned Parenthood, cripple health care reform, and inform the slutty environment it's not a rape victim when corporations pummel it because it was totally begging for it with its skimpy, half-naked ozone and come drill me mantle.