Mammoth Cave National Park workers are still without pay

MAMMOTH CAVE, Ky.- It’s day 28 of the partial government shutdown. The White House continues to be in a stalemate, and federal workers still have not been paid.

Workers at Mammoth Cave National Park are among the 800,000 federal workers who continue to go unpaid. The park itself remains vacant and barren.

Kentucky Congressman Brett Guthrie, in solidarity with those federal workers going without pay, said he will go without pay.

“I’m going to join with it too. We get paid differently than they do, but if they haven’t gotten paid by the time our pay check comes, I’m going to have them hold my pay until they get paid,” Guthrie said.

As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the President appear to be in a standoff, there is no sign of the shutdown ending.

“Speaker Pelosi for whatever reason made the determination she’s not going to negotiate with President Trump. Until she says we’re going to sit down and negotiate, I’m not sure where we’re going to go with that,” Guthrie said.

Guthrie participated in the 2013 government shutdown under the Obama administration, and says their priority back then was to end the shutdown before federal workers missed pay.

“I’ve heard people say, well when President Obama was there you shut down the government, but I will tell you because I was in the room, our deadline was payday,” Guthrie said.

Guthrie voted in favor to end the United Stated federal government shutdown in 2013.

“What brought us together is we said we’re not going to let these people go without pay,” said Congressman Guthrie.

About 800,000 federal workers were indefinitely furloughed, and another 1.3 million were required to work without known payment during the government shutdown in 2013.