In a court filing, the budget office said well over 4,000 employees would be fired, though it noted that the funding situation was \u201cfluid and rapidly evolving.\u201d<\/b>
\nIn a court filing, the budget office said well over 4,000 employees would be fired, though it noted that the funding situation was \u201cfluid and rapidly evolving.\u201d
WASHINGTON The White House budget office said Friday that mass firings of federal workers have started, an attempt by President Donald Trump\u2019s administration to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown dragged into a 10th day.
Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said on the social media site X that the \u201cRIFs have begun,\u201d referring to reduction-in-force plans aimed at reducing the size of the federal government.
In a court filing, the budget office said well over 4,000 employees would be fired, though it noted that the funding situation was \u201cfluid and rapidly evolving.\u201d
The firings would hit the hardest at the departments of the Treasury, which would lose over 1,400 employees, and Health and Human Services, with a loss of over 1,100. The Education Department and Housing and Urban Development each would lose over 400 staffers. The departments of Commerce, Energy and Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency were all set to fire hundreds of more employees. It was not clear which particular programs would be affected.
The aggressive move by Trump\u2019s budget office goes far beyond what usually happens in a government shutdown and escalates an already politically toxic dynamic between the White House and Congress. Talks to end the shutdown are almost nonexistent.
Typically, federal workers are furloughed but restored to their jobs once the shutdown ends, traditionally with back pay. Some 750,000 employees are expected to be furloughed during the shutdown, officials have said.
In comments to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday night, Trump said many people would be losing their jobs, and that the firings would be focused on Democrat-oriented areas, though he didn\u2019t explain exactly what that meant.
\u201cIt\u2019ll be a lot, and we\u2019ll announce the numbers over the next couple of days,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019ll be a lot of people.\u201d
Trump said that, going forward, \u201cWe\u2019re going to make a determination, do we want a lot? And I must tell you, a lot of them happen to be Democrat oriented.\u201d
\u201cThese are people that the Democrats wanted, that, in many cases, were not appropriate,\u201d he said of federal employees, eventually adding, \u201cMany of them will be fired.\u201d
Still, some leading Republicans were highly critical of the administration\u2019s actions.
\u201cI strongly oppose OMB Director Russ Vought\u2019s attempt to permanently lay off federal workers who have been furloughed due to a completely unnecessary government shutdown,\u201d said Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, who blamed the federal closure on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski called the announcement \u201cpoorly timed\u201d and \u201cyet another example of this administration\u2019s punitive actions toward the federal workforce.\u201d
For his part, Schumer said the blame for the layoffs rested with Trump.
\u201cLet\u2019s be blunt: nobody\u2019s forcing Trump and Vought to do this,\u201d Schumer said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have to do it; they want to. They\u2019re callously choosing to hurt people \u2014 the workers who protect our country, inspect our food, respond when disasters strike. This is deliberate chaos.\u201d
The White House had previewed its tactics shortly before the government shutdown began on Oct. 1, telling all federal agencies to submit their reduction-in-force plans to the budget office for its review.
It said reduction-in-force plans could apply to federal programs whose funding would lapse in a government shutdown, are otherwise not funded and are \u201cnot consistent with the President\u2019s priorities.\u201d
On Friday, the Education Department was among the agencies hit by new layoffs, a department spokesperson said. A labor union for the agency\u2019s workers said the administration is laying off almost all employees below the director level at the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, while fewer than 10 employees were being terminated at the agency\u2019s Office of Communications and Outreach.
Notices of firings have also taken place at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which leads federal efforts to reduce risk to the nation\u2019s cyber and physical infrastructure, according to DHS, where CISA is housed. The agency has been a frequent Trump target over its work to counter misinformation about the 2020 presidential election and the COVID-19 pandemic. DHS said the layoffs were \u201cpart of getting CISA back on mission.\u201d
Federal health workers were also being fired, though an HHS spokesman did not say how many or which agencies were being hit hardest. A spokesperson for the EPA, which also has an unspecified number of layoffs, blamed the Democrats for the firings and said they can vote to reopen the government anytime.
An official for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents federal workers and is suing the Trump administration over the firings, said in a legal filing Friday that the Treasury Department is set to issue layoff notices to 1,300 employees.
The AFGE asked a federal judge to halt the firings, calling the action an abuse of power designed to punish workers and pressure Congress.
\u201cIt is disgraceful that the Trump administration has used the government shutdown as an excuse to illegally fire thousands of workers who provide critical services to communities across the country,\u201d AFGE President Everett Kelley said in a statement.
Democrats have tried to call the administration\u2019s bluff, arguing the firings could be illegal, and had seemed bolstered by the fact that the White House had not immediately pursued the layoffs once the shutdown began.
But Trump signaled earlier this week that job cuts could be coming in \u201cfour or five days.\u201d
\u201cIf this keeps going on, it\u2019ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back,\u201d he said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the halls of the Capitol were quiet on Friday, the 10th day of the shutdown, with both the House and the Senate out of Washington and both sides digging in for a protracted shutdown fight. Senate Republicans have tried repeatedly to cajole Democratic holdouts to vote for a stopgap bill to reopen the government, but Democrats have refused as they hold out for a firm commitment to extend health care benefits.
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have suggested that Vought\u2019s threats of mass layoffs have been unhelpful to bipartisan talks.
And the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, said in a statement that the \u201cshutdown does not give Trump or Vought new, special powers\u201d to lay off workers.
\u201cThis is nothing new, and no one should be intimidated by these crooks,\u201d she added.
Still, there was no sign that the top Democratic and Republican Senate leaders were even talking about a way to solve the impasse. Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune continued to try to peel away centrist Democrats who may be willing to cross party lines.
\u201cIt\u2019s time for them to get a backbone,\u201d Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said Friday.
The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan organization that tracks federal service, says more than 200,000 civil servants have left since the start of this administration in January due to earlier firings, retirements and deferred resignation offers.
\u201cThese unnecessary and misguided reductions in force will further hollow out our federal government, rob it of critical expertise and hobble its capacity to effectively serve the public,\u201d said the organization\u2019s president and CEO, Max Stier.<\/p>\n