Trump’s Office of Management and Budget under Russell Vought has moved with more executive authority over spending, which is typically left to Congress. The administration took steps to cancel foreign aid and asserted power to withhold billions of domestic spending.
“I would expect this shutdown to look different than any other shutdown,” said Joshua Sewell, Taxpayers for Common Sense director of research and policy. He said he expects that the Trump team’s actions would be guided by what they believe achieves the most for them politically.
Trump could use a shutdown to dismantle government functions, wrote Max Stier, chief of executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit focused on improving the federal government.
If lawmakers can’t reach a deal, Stier wrote, Trump and Vought “will have enormous latitude to determine which services, programs, and employees can be sidelined, decisions that could go far beyond what has occurred during past shutdowns.”
I don’t think they’re necessarily telling them to capitulate, but this is due to a memo released a few days ago.
It might be an empty threat or it might be one of those damned if you do damned if you don’t situations.
In the memo, OMB told agencies to identify programs, projects and activities where discretionary funding will lapse Oct. 1 and no alternative funding source is available. For those areas, OMB directed agencies to begin drafting RIF plans that would go beyond standard furloughs, permanently eliminating jobs in programs not consistent with President Donald Trump’s priorities in the event of a shutdown.
The move marks a significant break from how shutdowns have been handled in recent decades, when most furloughs were temporary and employees were brought back once Congress voted to reopen government and funding was restored. This time, OMB Director Russ Vought is using the threat of permanent job cuts as leverage, upping the ante in the standoff with Democrats in Congress over government spending.
Even if the government shuts down it’s important people understand this is most likely coming. It’s better for people to be angry about this before the fact so they know who to blame once the shutdown happens, bc the GOP is definitely going to try and blame the layoffs on the Democrats as if this was their fault for allowing the shutdown.
But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries struck a different note in an X post that appeared to take the threat seriously. He addressed it to voters in federal-worker-rich Virginia, who will soon elect a governor and other state officials. “Their goal is to ruin your life and punish hardworking families already struggling with Trump Tariffs and inflation,” he said. “Remember in November.”
My take on it, they’re not going to just layoff people because there is a shutdown. They want to lay all of these people off eventually regardless of funding the government.
If they’re going to lay them off either way, then it’s not really a threat nor is it part of the budget discussions. They’ve played their hand and it doesn’t really shift the discussion.
They’re also ignoring the limits of their powers, so shutting down won’t give them any more powers than they’ve been taking either.
And writing about giving the administration “talking points” is even dumber. Since they lie about everything being the left’s fault already anyway.