Only seven House members (all Republicans) showed logic, principle, and political courage on Friday by voting against a bill that will eventually provide back pay for federal workers furloughed during the partial government shutdown.

A very simple, commonsense principle should apply here: If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. Period.

It matters not if it’s not your fault that you aren’t working. If you are in the private sector and your employer decides to close shop for the last three weeks of a year because there’s a lull in business, then you won’t get paid — even if the lull in business isn’t your fault. No reasonable person would expect otherwise.

So why should federal civil servants be any different? Why should taxpayers be forced — repeat, forced, under penalty of law — to pay for services not being performed for them?