>> DO YOU SUPPORT “NO BUDGET, NO PAY”? << 

Hi Friend,

Did you hear that? That was the collective sigh of relief from workers, military troops and ordinary Americans like you who depend on government services in our daily lives. 

Tonight, Washington lawmakers tapped a spirit of bipartisanship to narrowly avert a government shutdown. 

In intense last-minute negotiations on Saturday in the nation’s capital, Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy reached across the aisle and secured critical Democratic votes with House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, and together they got enough votes to pass a House budget package that averts a government shutdown. 

Lawmakers in the House Problem Solvers Caucus – a bipartisan initiative that No Labels is proud to have helped start over a decade ago – played a critical role in realizing this success. They offered a framework for compromise last week, and they modeled for lawmakers – and America – how we can get the job done if we work together. Watch them on the Sunday news shows as they chronicle the dramatic last-minute negotiations.  

The Senate just passed the House bill, funding the government for 45 days until Nov. 17.  

Of course, you and I know that while the government remains open, the corridors of Congress echo with lingering blame and political theater, and the House and Senate must still pass a final budget before the short-term funding runs out.  

What can we do to make sure that this never happens again?  

Well, more than a decade ago, in 2011, No Labels proposed a bold new idea in our first policy book, “Make Congress Work,” encouraging members to put aside the partisanship and make sure they passed budget and spending bills on time. We called the idea something very simple: “No Budget, No Pay.”  

The idea is as simple as it sounds – if Congress fails to pass a budget on time, they don’t get paid until they do. It’s a simple measure of fairness that is still so popular with the American people that it is a key plank of our Common Sense policy booklet and was trending online this week – #nobudgetnopay – and getting discussed at the Republican debate. 

Though initially conceived as a short-term solution, the recurring threat of government shutdowns makes it clear that it’s time for "No Budget, No Pay" to become law.

Take our 1-question survey: Do you support “No Budget, No Pay”?