Quickest, easiest, legit way for the government to cut its spending right away without cutting a lot of ongoing funding or bumping up taxes. Govt can't pay for more things without taking more in and/or cutting things... like say veterans benefits, social security, medicare and medicaid.
II'm sure they hope govt workers have handled their finances wells enough that they actually have savings and won't go bankrupt if they don't work or get paid for say, 2 weeks or a month. Alternative could be they lay off a lot of workers and make the rest pick up the slack. But hey, taxing 5 cents or so on sodas is a bad idea. And millionaires can't afford to pay a few extra dozens of thousands of dollars out of their millions in net pay each year.i