Air Force veteran whose husband is not being paid due to the shutdown wins $100k and an SUV in the Virginia Lottery
- Carrie Walls won the Virginia Lottery’s ‘Ford Expedition Plus $100K’ and collected her brand new SUV and a cheque for $100,000
- Walls, a US Air Force veteran, had the winning ticket out of 554,000 entries
- The win came at an ideal time as her husband is furloughed by the shutdown
- ‘I cried, I couldn’t believe it’, said Walls upon discovering she had won
A Virginia woman whose husband is one of 800,000 workers impacted by the Government shutdown won $100,000 and an SUV in the lottery.
Carrie Walls won the Virginia Lottery’s ‘Ford Expedition Plus $100K,’ a scratch-off contest.
In a picture posted by the state’s lottery commission, she’s seen smiling inside the driver’s seat of the new white SUV, holding a Virginia Lottery check almost as wide as the front door.
‘I cried, I couldn’t believe it’, said Walls upon discovering she had the winning numbers.
Carrie Walls (pictured) won $100,000 and an SUV in the Virginia lottery as her husband is furloughed by the Government shutdown
Walls (pictured) spent more than 13 years in the U. S. Air Force cried when discovering she won
Walls, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, had the winning ticket out of 554,000 entries.
She said the win came at an ideal time because her husband, John Walls, is a federal worker who has been furloughed by the partial government shutdown.
Walls bought the scratch-off on December 4, two weeks before the shutdown began.
She said she was already planning on taking her family to Disney World.
The US government shutdown became the longest on record at midnight Friday, when it overtook a 21-day stretch in 1995-1996 under president Bill Clinton.
Trump fired off a series of tweets Saturday in an effort to defend his stance and goad Democrats to return to Washington and end what he called ‘the massive humanitarian crisis at our Southern Border’.
But most lawmakers left town on Friday and will not return before Monday, leaving little chance for any solution to the stalemate before then.
Air Force veterans Carrie Walls and husband John Walls are pictured on her Facebook page
Walls, pictured during active service, said the win came at an ideal time as her husband is not being paid
The impasse has paralyzed Washington — its impact felt increasingly around the country — with the president refusing to sign off on budgets for swaths of government departments unrelated to the dispute.
But most lawmakers left town on Friday and will not return before Monday, leaving little chance for any solution to the stalemate before then.
As a result, 800,000 federal employees — including FBI agents, air traffic controllers and museum staff — received no paychecks on Friday.
Unions representing federal workers who haven’t been paid filed suit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, demanding full compensation for time and overtime they have worked.
People rally against the partial federal government shutdown outside the U.S. Capitol January 10, 2019 in Washington, DC.
A demonstrator holds a sign, signifying hundreds of thousands of federal employees who won’t be receiving their paychecks as a result of the partial government shutdown
‘This lawsuit is not complicated: We do not believe it is lawful to compel a person to work without paying them,’ Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, said .
‘With this lawsuit we’re saying. No, you can’t pay workers with I.O.U.s. That will not work for us’.
On Friday, Congress passed legislation guaranteeing back pay for furloughed workers.