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How to End the Government Shutdown: Stop Paying Congress, Ackman Says

How to End the Government Shutdown: Stop Paying Congress, Ackman Says

(Bloomberg) -- Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman made a rare social-media appearance late on Thursday, tweeting that government shutdowns would not occur if members of Congress went unpaid along with federal government workers.

As the partial U.S. government shutdown extended into its 34th day on Friday, the Pershing Square Capital founder noted in a tweet that members of Congress were paid during this period while federal government workers were not.

There would no longer be government shutdowns if this "inequity" were fixed, he said.

Ackman has posted on Twitter or retweeted accounts a total of 15 times since he joined the social media platform in June 2017. In a series of tweets Thursday, he also encouraged his followers to watch a “really important” speech by Democratic Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet on the Senate floor.

Last week, CNN reported that more than 100 members of Congress had pledged to reject paychecks during the partial government shutdown.

To contact the reporters on this story: Sarah Jacob in Bangalore at sjacob19@bloomberg.net;Huang Zhe in Beijing at zhuang37@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Niluksi Koswanage at nkoswanage@bloomberg.net, Sebastian Tong

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