Government shutdown would halt pay for 10,000 Beaufort-area military members

A sign at Fat Patties in Port Royal advertises “military Monday” — when members of the military get 25 percent off. The burger joint is located on Parris Island Gateway, just a brisk jog from Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, where 20,000 men and women each year are trained to be marines.

“We love the military here,” says Taylor Lewis, a manager at Fat Patties.

But along with other area businesses that heavily cater to the men and women in uniform, Fat Patties would feel the impact of an extended government shutdown, which was still looming as of Friday. A shutdown would stop the pay for 1.3 million active-duty troops — including 10,571 based in Beaufort County.

“This is a huge mess and here we at are midnight the night before an exam and we are just starting to study,” Congresswoman Nancy Mace, whose district includes Beaufort County, told Fox News’ Neal Cavuto on Wednesday.

However, Col. Neal Pugliese, a retired Marine who is chairman of the Military Enhancement Committee of Beaufort County, says “functionally speaking, no one is felling the pain just yet.” That’s because Marines were paid on Oct. 28, so the impact would not be felt until the middle of October.

“It will be disruptive,” Pugliese says of a shutdown, “but it won’t be catastrophic.”

That said, there will be impacts, Pugliese says. One is that some civilians who work on the base will be furloughed.

Congress must fund the government or pass a continuing resolution by the end of the fiscal year by midnight Sunday to avoid a government shutdown. If it doesn’t, the U.S government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.

If a shutdown occurs, the nation’s military members, the Biden White House says, will continue working every day to keep they country safe, but won’t receive paychecks until funding becomes available. They will receive back pay once it reopens. The last government shutdown, in 2019, lasted 35 days.

The stoppage of income for soldiers would, in turn, slow what they spend on housing, food and other goods and services at area businesses, where it’s not uncommon to see U.S., state of South Carolina and the U.S. Marine Corps flags flying side-by-side. It also will affect what the military as a whole will spend.

“It’s so much of the consumer base for the region,” Ian Scott, president of the Beaufort Area Chamber of Commerce, says of military spending. “There will be an impact for businesses of all sizes.”

Between Parris Island and the Naval Hospital in Port Royal, and Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, just north of that city, the trio of major military installations north of the Broad River have an annual economic output of $2.5 billion, according to a 2022 report by the South Carolina Department of Veterans’ Affairs. That’s about a quarter of Beaufort County’s entire GDP, Scott says.

Spokespersons for Beaufort County military bases said they could not comment on the situation.

Besides the pay stoppage, the Department of Defense said a shutdown would:

▪ Halt change of station moves

▪ Postpone elective surgeries and procedures in DOD medical and dental facilities

▪ Close commissaries on most bases in the continental U.S. except remote U.S. locations where no other sources of food are reasonably available for military personnel

▪ Lead to furloughs for some DOD civilians, including military technicians, who are not deemed essential

A Marine graduation is held each Friday at Parris Island. And each Friday, graduates can eat for free at Fat Patties.

“It’s one of my favorite days of the weeks,” says Lewis, the Fat Patties manager, whose father was a Marine for 25 years.

Lewis estimates over 50 percent of the restaurant’s customers are members of the military. “I definitely feel like that would affect us,” she says of the government shutdown.