Mass layoffs of federal workers begin as Trump presidency seeks…

The White House budget office said Friday that mass layoffs of federal workers have begun, an attempt by President Donald Trump’s administration to put more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the shutdown drags into its 10th day.

Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said on the social media site X that the “RIFs have begun,” referring to military reduction plans aimed at reducing the size of the federal government.

A Budget Office spokesperson said the reductions were “substantial” but offered no further details.

Federal health care providers, the Department of Education and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which leads efforts to protect the nation’s physical and cyber infrastructure, were all among those reporting immediate hits to their workforces, which potentially number thousands of employees.

The aggressive move by Trump’s budget office goes far beyond what typically happens in government shutdowns and intensifies an already politically toxic dynamic between the White House and Congress. Talks to end the shutdown are almost non-existent.

The government shutdown takes hold with no end in sight
The government shutdown takes hold with no end in sight
Hopes for a quick end to the government shutdown fade
Hopes for a quick end to the government shutdown fade
Typically, federal workers are furloughed but reinstated to work once the shutdown ends, traditionally with back pay. About 750,000 employees are expected to be laid off during the shutdown, officials said.

Government shutdown

A leading Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, criticized the administration’s action.

“I strongly oppose OMB Director Russ Vought’s attempt to permanently lay off federal workers who were laid off due to a completely unnecessary government shutdown,” said Collins, chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, who blamed the federal shutdown on Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.

“Their work is incredibly important in serving the public,” he said in a statement, adding that “arbitrary firings” cause harm to families in his state of Maine “and across our country.”

The top Democrat in the Senate, Schumer of New York, said Trump was to blame for the layoffs.

“Let’s be frank: Nobody is forcing Trump and Vought to do this,” Schumer said. “They don’t have to do it; they want to do it. They are callously choosing to hurt people: the workers who protect our country, inspect our food, respond when disasters strike. This is deliberate chaos.”

The White House had predicted it would pursue the aggressive layoff tactic shortly before the government shutdown began on Oct. 1, telling all federal agencies to submit their reduction plans to the budget office for review.

He said the military reduction plans could apply to federal programs whose funding would expire in the event of a government shutdown, would otherwise go unfunded, and “are not consistent with the president’s priorities.”

The Education Department was among the agencies hit by new layoffs on Friday, a department spokeswoman said, without providing further details. The department had about 4,100 employees when Trump took office in January, but its workforce was nearly halved amid mass layoffs in the early months of the Republican administration. At the start of the shutdown it had around 2,500 employees.

Federal health workers have also been laid off, though a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not say how many or which agencies have been hit hardest.

Notices of layoffs have also taken place at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which leads federal efforts to reduce risks to the nation’s physical and cyber infrastructure, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss it.

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And an official with the American Federation of Government Employees, which is suing the Trump administration over the layoffs, said in a legal filing Friday that the Treasury Department will issue layoff notices to 1,300 employees.

AFGE, a federal employee union, asked a federal judge for a restraining order to stop the layoffs, calling the action an abuse of power aimed at punishing workers and pressuring Congress.

“It is shameful that the Trump administration used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers providing essential services to communities across the country,” American Federation of Public Employees President Everett Kelley said in a statement.

Democrats tried to call the administration’s bluff, arguing that the firings might be illegal, and appeared emboldened by the fact that the White House had yet to carry out the firings.

But Trump warned earlier this week that he would soon have more information on how many federal jobs would be eliminated.

“If this continues, it will be substantial and many of these jobs will never come back,” he said in the Oval Office on Tuesday as he met with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the tenth day of the shutdown, the halls of the Capitol were quiet, with the House and Senate out of Washington and both sides engaged in a long battle over the shutdown. Senate Republicans have repeatedly tried to persuade Democrats to vote for a temporary bill to reopen the government, but Democrats have refused as they demand a firm commitment to extending health care benefits.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have suggested that Vought’s threats of mass layoffs have not been helpful to bipartisan talks over the funding standoff.

And the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Patty Murray of Washington, said in a statement that “the shutdown does not give Trump or Vought any new special powers” ​​to lay off workers.

“This is nothing new and no one should be intimidated by these scammers,” he added.

However, there was no sign that the Senate’s top Democratic and Republican leaders were talking about a way to resolve the impasse. Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune continued to try to alienate centrist Democrats who might be willing to cross party lines as the pain of the shutdown dragged on.

“It’s time to give them a backbone,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said during a news conference.

The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan organization that monitors the federal service, says more than 200,000 public employees have left office since this administration began in January due to early layoffs, retirements and delayed resignation offers.

“These unnecessary and misguided workforce reductions will further weaken our federal government, deprive it of critical expertise, and hinder its ability to effectively serve the public,” said the organization’s president and CEO, Max Stier.

[AP]

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