White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought on Friday said the Trump administration has started layoffs of federal bureaucrats after Democrats shut down the government.
“The RIFs have begun,” Vought wrote on X, referring to reductions in force that would dramatically reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy.
An OMB spokesperson told Breitbart News that the RIFs have begun and they are substantial.
Eric Teetsel, the CEO of the Center for Renewing America, noted that a RIF is a permanent elimination of a position rather than a temporary furlough.
PBS explained on Friday:
The White House previewed that it would pursue the aggressive layoff tactic 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 could apply for federal programs whose funding would lapse in a government shutdown, is otherwise not funded and is “not consistent with the President’s priorities.”
About 300,000 federal civilian workers will leave their jobs this year as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to reduce the size and scope of the federal government.
The OMB has also argued that federal bureaucrats who are not receiving pay due to the shutdown are not necessarily guaranteed to receive back pay.
Breitbart News reported:
If the White House were to move on the legal analysis, it would up the ante on Senate Democrats to end the weeklong shutdown by denying back pay to as many as 750,000 federal workers after the shutdown.
A memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget argued that the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act (GEFTA), a bill Trump signed during his first term in office, is “deficient” and does not guarantee that federal workers automatically would be compensated after a shutdown ends.
“Does this law cover all these furloughed employees automatically? The conventional wisdom is: Yes, it does. Our view is: No, it doesn’t,” a senior White House official said.
“This would not have happened if Democrats voted for the clean CR,” a senior administration official told Axios.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) told Breitbart News that taxpayers are paying $400 million per day for non-essential federal bureaucrats not to work during the Democrat shutdown.
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