No government? Then how about no pay for Congress!

With Washington hurtling toward another terribly costly, unnecessary and disastrous federal shutdown, I have a proposition for my congressional colleagues: no government, no pay. Government by crisis management is no way to run a country. It’s time for Congress to take responsibility for the consequences of failing to pass the federal budget on time by foregoing their own salaries.

Under my bipartisan No Government No Pay Act (H.R. 1789), when Congress allows the federal government to shut down, members would not be paid until everything is back up and running. Not just a delay in congressional pay, but no pay at all — ever — for those wasted days.

{mosads}The Constitution requires No Government No Pay to apply to all future Congresses. But by passing the bill, this Congress can send an important and welcome message to the American people: Simply stated, we have decided to start living in the real world, where you either do your job or you don’t get paid. Congress’s job is to get to work, fix what needs fixing and do what needs to be done to keep the government open and working. Failing in that, members of Congress will have the decency and integrity to forgo their own pay and be required to work day and night until the situation is resolved.

That’s why I introduced the first No Government No Pay Act before the October 2013 budget deadlock. That debacle put the American people through a 16-day shutdown that took $24 billion out of our economy, cost 120,000 good-paying jobs and furloughed more than 800,000 federal employees. Businesses suffered, products were left sitting at our ports, veterans’ disability claims were stalled, national parks and Head Start centers were closed and Environmental Protection Agency hazardous waste and chemical waste inspections were postponed — just to name a few of the consequences.

During that time, I and many other members contributed our salaries to charity. But even if all 435 of us had chosen to do so, those donations would not have begun to make a dent in the enormous expenses incurred by American taxpayers — not to mention the worldwide embarrassment and ridicule our nation suffered for Congress’s dysfunction.

It’s also important to understand that in order to fix our broken budget process and finish work on time, Congress must first restore regular order. These are the time-tested rules of operation and process that help facilitate finding common ground and preventing government shutdowns caused by gridlock.

Under regular order, bills are argued and debated through the bipartisan committee process under an open rule that allows all ideas and amendments to be fully considered. Regular order fosters bipartisanship and cooperation as we find common ground and points of agreement. Without regular order, chaos ensues when legislation stalls because it’s been written behind closed doors, under closed rules with no opportunity for all members of Congress to offer amendments. That’s what’s happening all too often now — a big reason why we are once again approaching shutdown mode.

Of course, regular order is a time-consuming process, with members required to spend days and many nights governing — fully considering bills and amendments in hearings and on the House floor. Real democracy is a lot of work. As a result, the campaign fundraising call centers across the street from the Capitol would be far less busy — and our democracy all the better for it. 

The American people send their elected representatives to Washington to fix things and solve problems — not shut down the government and collect a salary for doing so. By passing the bipartisan No Government No Pay Act, Congress can collectively send them the message: “Yes, we finally get it!”

Nolan represents Minnesota’s 8th District.

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.