Americans are sick and tired of shutdowns being used as political leverage. Every time Congress fails to fund the government, it is ordinary federal workers who get hit first — TSA officers, federal law enforcement, Social Security processors, NIH researchers, military families, air traffic controllers. They lose paychecks. They get threatened with eviction. They can’t go to the doctor. They worry about groceries.

Meanwhile Congress and Congressional staff continue to receive pay and full health benefits. Their security, their income, their families’ medical coverage — totally untouched.

That is unacceptable.

If Congress shuts down the government, Congress and every single staffer should immediately lose pay, lose healthcare benefits, and lose perks — until the government reopens.

Only one exception: travel to DC to physically do their job should still be covered. That’s it.

Nothing else.

Congress created the shutdown. Congress should take the impact FIRST — before a single federal employee misses one day’s pay.

Let’s end the perverse incentive where shutdowns are “costless” for the people in power but catastrophic for the people who actually make the country function.

This petition demands the introduction and passage of legislation that mandates:

• No Congressional pay during a shutdown.
• No health insurance coverage for members or staff during a shutdown — including coverage for dependents — until government is open.
• No security detail benefits or other taxpayer-funded perks during a shutdown, except direct travel to DC.
• If Congress wants to play chicken with the budget, they can do it with their own livelihoods and families on the line — not ours.

We will not allow federal workers to be used as pawns ever again.

Sign to demand that Congress stop protecting themselves while they punish the rest of the country.