There are a couple of issues to flag.... The biggest thing is that there is no promise that furloughed workers get backpay. Only essential workers for various agencies and departments actually are promised it and furloughed are for the most part not included.
On top of the fact that even if they fund the government Wednesday people might not get paid for the days they were furloughed Senate Dems do not have a solid offramp anymore and the optics will blow up on them. The three that have voted to keep the government open are fine but the other 5 that will need to flip are going to look bad no matter how they try to frame this. Two of the 5 I would imagine are the retiring Dem Senators but the other three.... Its going to be rough.
Once we have to debate backpay another huge issue is going to emerge for the Dems as there isnt going to be much Republican support to pay people who did not work.
So I should clarify what I meant.... A ton of the workers in the Federal Government are contractors like the people who run the food services, laundry services, and janitor services in the House and Senate. Those workers, which number in the hundreds of thousands, are not entitled to backpay.
The Federal Government itself does employee a ton of people but the majority of it it is done via Federal Contractors who do not historically receive backpay.
For instance the National Labs almost everyone at them are contractors. Tons of people who work in the Smithsonian's, Government buildings, even places like Military Bases..... for the most part people passing them assume the are Federal Employees and most of them say they are since it is easier to say I work for say the DOE or DOD rather than XYZ company who has a contract with DOE or DOD.
Right yea the paycheck is lagged vs. work, so I think @Cje95 is wrong about Republicans will try to not provide back pay... there should be at least some backpay.
The backpay itself is also not paid back all at once. At least not on the House or Senate side if it reaches a certain point (most of the time the month). They pay it out over a couple months due to other legal threshold amounts and tax issues. Senate might be slightly different but they have the same general rules they just get paid biweekly.
They really are trying to frame this as a Republican caused thing the issue is whenever they have the Senate next time the Republicans can do the exact thing to them with a clean CR. This is something I never would have thought they would have chosen. It really opens up pandoras box.
I think that was more of Trump wasnt going to sign it into law if I am remembering correctly.... it still blew up in Republican's faces. Historically for the last 30 years whoever shuts it down pays the consequences and so Republicans know first hand it doesnt work.