Trump threatens mass layoffs as shutdown begins. Can he do that?
With more than half a million federal workers now on leave, President Donald Trump undertakes to make this government even more impactful-by promulgating deep and permanent cuts in federal labor. But he is already faced with legal challenges and questions to find out if he even authorized workers during a closure.
“We can do things during the closure that is irreversible, which are bad for [Democrats] And irreversible by them, like cutting a large number of people, reducing the things they like, reducing the programs they love, “said President Trump on Tuesday, a few hours before the closure.” They take a risk by having a closure. “”
The closure comes in the middle of an already mass loft reduction in the federal workforce by the Trump administration. The staff management office estimates that more than 300,000 federal employees will have disappeared by the end of the year – about one eighth in the total federal workforce, which was 2.4 million when Mr. Trump returned to the White House. This includes 100,000 workers who responded to the “Fork in the Road” offer and chose early retirement or deferred resignation. Most of these workers had stayed on the government’s wage bill without working, their employment officially ending on September 30, the end of the fiscal year.
Why we wrote this
A partial closure of the government is underway among the disputes of partisan expenditure. This is different this time: President Donald Trump undertakes to further reduce the federal workforce. This would be the last example of assertion of the powers extended for the presidency.
In the closings of the previous government, large expanses of federal workers have been put on leave. But they have always returned to work as soon as the congress and the president agreed from a financing agreement and received a salary (mandated by law in 2019 after the last closure).
Government ministries in concourist the majority of their employees this time include the Environmental Protection Agency, the Ministry of Labor and what remains of the Ministry of Education, of which almost half of the employees had already been dismissed by the Trump administration earlier this year.
EPA in particular could be targeted for other dismissals of the Trump administration.
The Management and Budget Office (OMB) published advice to government agencies last week to plan permanent layoffs in the event of a closure, while the personnel management office has updated its closure forecasts to affirm that agencies “are authorized to order employees to carry out the necessary work to administer the RIF [reduction in force] Process during the forfeiture of credits as except activities. »»
The act of dismissal of employees requires administrative work by representatives of the government who would normally be placed on leave during a closure. The only people legally authorized to be exempt from content are those whose work is deemed necessary to protect imminent threats to life or to property or to support a fully funded government function.
The opinion of the OMB according to which workers involved in the dismissal of employees can continue to do this work in a closure is new – and legally not tested. And he is about to deal with a meticulous examination.
Tuesday afternoon, a few hours before the start of the closure, the American Federation of Government employees; American Federation of State, County and Municipalities employees; And other unions continued the Trump administration to block any mass dismissal during the closure, arguing that they would be an illegal abuse of power.
“The Trump administration has made illegal threats to dismantle the essential federal services and functions provided by federal staff, deviating from historical practice and violating applicable laws, if a judgment occurs,” said the trial, arguing that the effect of layoffs is “clearly not authorized (or” except “) which can continue slightly during a break.”
Sam Berger, a former senior CMB manager during the Obama administration who participated in the navigation of the 2013 government’s closure, said that the COM did not offer “legal justification” for its argument that employees implementing layoffs can continue to work when closing.
“The closure itself does not give them the power to engage in these generalized layoffs,” he says. “Their HR services, in most cases, have no funding, and they should therefore not be able to work on the Rif during a closure.”
This seems to be the last of a series of calculated efforts by the director of the OMB Russell Vought and the Trump administration to test the long -term restrictions on the executive power to try to extend the power of the presidency.
“They are trying to shape how the power of the executive branch is used in the law, as opposed to a set of standards,” said a senior Commission for Mr. Trump’s first mandate who spoke of the background. “A large part of what this administration is doing is really pushed to be clarified in written law, in particular, which are these limits of executive power.”
This civil servant was involved in the navigation on content the last time that the financing of the government expired, at the end of 2018 and early 2019. This closure of 35 days, the longest in the history of the United States, occurred because Mr. Trump tried to force the Democrats to give him funding for a wall along the American-Mexican border.
The objective of the Trump administration was then to minimize the amount of disturbance felt by the American public. But now, Democrats are those who force the closure, to try to bring the Republicans to continue to finance “Obamacare” subsidies, so that millions of people do not see steep jumps in health care premiums. This means that the shoe is on the other foot – and Mr. Trump seeks to exert maximum pressure.
“We put in licensee a lot of people,” said the president on Tuesday afternoon. “Many good can come from closures. We get rid of many things we didn’t want. And they would be democratic things.”
The Democrats replied that Mr. Trump had shown his real colors with this statement.
“Well, there are.
When asked if he feared that the closure will lead to more layoffs, Mr. Schumer said: “He does it anyway. They have already cut 300,000 people.
The courts will probably decide if they are allowed to pass.
