Freedom Caucus Chair to Federal Workers Who Might Get Furloughed: 'Tough Shit,' Basically

The threat of a partial government shutdown is looking more and more like a reality now that President Donald Trump opened up his big wet mouth and got involved in what was essentially a done deal that would have funded the government through February 8.

Now, unless House Republicans can get their act together, it looks like thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands—of federal employees might be furloughed without pay. That’s a uniformly shitty situation to be in, especially during the winter holidays. Not that GOP Rep. Mark Meadows, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, seems to really care.

“It’s actually part of what you do when you sign up for any public service position,” Meadows told reporters on Thursday in response to a question about Transportation Security Administration and Customs and Border Patrol agents who would be affected by the shutdown.

“It’s not lost on me in terms of, you know, the potential hardship,” Meadows continued. “At the same time, they know they would be required to work and even in preparation for a potential shutdown those groups within the agencies have been instructed to show up.”

Of course, there’s plenty of other federal workers about to get screwed over who aren’t patting you down at the airport, or arresting children at the border. And to all of them, Meadows is essentially saying: Yeah, you should have known that when you took your job with the federal government, things were being run by a bunch of whiny babies who’d end up screwing you over right before they flew out of town for a little holiday vacay.

According to the job recruiting site Glassdoor.com, the average TSA salary is somewhere in or around $37,000 annually. As of 2015, Rep. Meadows’ net worth was between $1.81 million and $6.9 million. Just a little something to keep in mind while you watch him shed crocodile tears for the federal working stiffs who are on the precipice of getting really stiffed, just because congressional Republicans can’t even get lunch with the President of the United States without blowing up a bipartisan budget deal.