breaking a twenty-eight dollar bills sucks, almost no one carries two elevens and a six.
that’s how i read it. also, they cleaned a nasty bathroom, that’s a hero in my book.
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interesting, never heard of that. I had to look it up as the wiki doesn’t go into specifics.
accepting voluntary services for the United States, or employing personal services not authorized by law, except in cases of emergency involving the safety of human life or the protection of property. 31 U.S.C. § 1342.
several points are, if he sent a bill it wasn’t voluntary labour and this could easily fall under both protection of property, and human safety (if this were a real arrangement agreed to ahead of time and not a good deed with a political ribbing). most importantly this law dictates what the government is allowed to do and has no provisions for charging an individual volunteer of any crime let alone an arrestable offense. 
BOINGBOING: this is a terrible and less-than-informative headline and story! That ‘man’, he’s the govenor’s husband. He also worked for the Forestry Dept., if I recall correctly from reading a much more fleshed our version of this story. He also posted before and after photos. That said, it was fucking gross. I hope he wore gloves and his vaccinations are up-to-date. I’d charge $28/hr, not /facility.
No, it’s nothing like this at all.
The government shut down doesn’t hurt the people who actually cause it.
So nobody should say this and mean it.
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It’s voluntary service vs involuntary. Guy had a choice in doing his action. The exception requires an emergency. Which is going to be interpreted as someone is in danger of dying imminently, not just the bathroom is disgusting. No federal employee can authorize payment. And attempting to bill the government without a contract would probably constitute fraud.
Let’s pretend this isn’t the case. I decide the government needs a nice new road for some reason, build it, then charge an [exorbitant -Mod] amount for doing so.
what’s the saying “can’t see the forest through the trees”? 
his service was voluntary as in he volunteered to do it out of kindness because it needed to be done, for free, he isn’t a park employee. (his service wasn’t conscripted voluntarily or involuntarily or at all hence the act doesn’t even apply)
he billed trump as a political ribbing, the president doesn’t even pay park employees, you think the whitehouse writes all the checks? he isn’t a park employee, no one authorised payment, it wasn’t a real invoice for the intent of fraud, lol. lets not pretend. and i think you mean excessive.
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“Pot calling kettle black”? The post I was replying to appeared to be making a legalist argument, and now you’re going “j/k! this is all funsies!”
The Anti-Deficiency Act applies whenever someone does work for the government. The President is the head of the Executive Branch, which the National Park Service is a part. Of course the President doens’t write the checks, but he can direct people to do so. Sending an invoice is implicitly asking for payment, and no one can authorize payment (even if he did have a contract, because that would fall under the other part of the ADA), especially as the people who would authorize payment are furloughed.
If someone painted your house, and sent you a bill, but you didn’t ask them to paint your house, would the invoice be fraudulent? The fact that it’s a joke in this case may mitigate it, but the mens rea may still be met. And sending “invoices” for stuff that haven’t even been done is a well known scam. The fact that they say in fine print “not an invoice” doesn’t keep people from paying them, or the scammers from getting prosecuted.
Please don’t use that term in a derogatory way as a diminutive slang, using it in that manner is offensive.
point being made was pointing out why the original legalist argument was so foolish and couldn’t possibly apply. doubling and now tripling down on that without addressing the points isn’t countering what i said so much as repeating the previously countered assumptions.
it is an act that dictates the behaviour of the government, and has nothing that applies to the volunteers, period, full stop. it has nothing that makes it enforceable for arrest. it isn’t even that kind of law.
government branches don’t bill and fund the way you are stating, the US government doesn’t work that way. Fraud is a crime that requires establishing intent in the US, which is clearly not the case here. we could probably identify another dozen ways in which this line of reasoning is flawed.
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