Many lawmakers are working to head off a shutdown come next week when the federal government is scheduled to run out of allotted funds. The White House, meanwhile, is taking what some observers see as an extraordinary step to capitalize on a potential disruption of federal services. In a memo shared with multiple agencies on Wednesday, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) instructed agency heads to prepare plans for permanent mass layoffs of certain employees should the government shut down on Oct. 1.
‘Attempt at intimidation’
Agency heads are “directed to use this opportunity to consider reduction-in-force notices” for all employees involved in programs that will run out of funds, do not have alternate funding avenues and are “not consistent with the president’s priorities,” said the OMB. The threat of mass layoffs “escalates the stakes” ahead of next week’s deadline and is a “significant break” from how shutdowns have been handled over the past several decades, said Politico.
The administration’s “extraordinary ultimatum” appears “designed to pressure Democrats,” coming hours after President Donald Trump “refused to negotiate” with party leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) over the budget showdown, said The New York Times. This is an “attempt at intimidation,” Schumer said in a statement Thursday. Shutdown firings will eventually be “overturned in court,” or the administration will “end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”
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This latest and “perhaps furthest-reaching” effort by the Trump administration to fire huge swaths of the federal government comes months after the White House’s Elon Musk-led DOGE enterprise yielded “mixed” results on that front, said CNN. Hundreds of federal employees who “lost their jobs in Musk’s cost-cutting blitz” were asked to return to work this week, said The Associated Press.
In “another unusual move,” the OMB has “yet to post agencies’ shutdown contingency plans on its website,” said the AP. Ordinarily, those plans direct “which functions and employees are deemed essential during a shutdown and will continue despite the impasse,” said CNN.
By continuing to agitate for a potential shutdown after the administration’s memo, Democrats are “eagerly marching forward into a box canyon,” said the National Review. Stuck between being in the minority and avoiding being tagged by the left flank of his party as a “man unwilling to ‘fight,’” Schumer will “likely have to concede and lose the fight in the not-so-distant future.”
To CR or not to CR?
At its core, the shutdown fight centers largely on whether Democrats will support a GOP-backed “clean” continuing resolution (CR) to essentially fund the government at its current levels through Nov. 21 or force a vote on a shorter stopgap CR that includes “several of their priorities,” predominantly focused on health care, said The Washington Post. While Democratic leadership was loath to risk a government shutdown earlier this year, Schumer now says the situation has changed and Democrats must “fight to improve health care in the wake of cuts implemented under the GOP tax and spending law,” said the Post.
