The U.S. federal government shutdown is now on its fifteenth day, with no end in sight. The impact of the standoff on the roughly 2.25 million civilian federal employees is significant. As of today, nearly 750,000 of these workers have been furloughed. Our own President Donald Trump has recently resumed his threats to defund “Democrat programs.” This worsening dynamic is already having dangerous and often deadly results for people on both sides.
The federal shutdown that started two weeks ago has caused pain for millions of Americans. It has primarily affected workers in the Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security Departments, home to 60 percent of federal employees. While the impasse continues, vital public workers have continued to report to work without pay, expecting to be paid retroactively when the government reopens.
On Tuesday, President Trump announced he would be releasing a ‘short list’ of specific programs to cut shortly. He suggested that this announcement may be possible as soon as Friday. He stated, “The Democrats are getting killed on the shutdown because we’re closing up programmes that are Democrat programmes that we were opposed to… and they’re never going to come back in many cases.” Such a short statement belies the acrimonious environment of the negotiations. As funding becomes stretched, some programs are even at risk of being eliminated – despite once basking in bipartisan glory.
It went from bad to worse, in a big way. A Republican-supported spending bill to extend government funding through November 21 did not attract needed support, dying with 49 supportive votes to 45 opposed. The bill required 60 votes to pass, and Republicans have struggled to gain support from Democrats amid ongoing disputes over healthcare subsidies.
Last Friday some 4,200 employees across eight federal government departments/agencies were issued “reduction-in-force notices.” This very concerning turn of events is a clear indication that unless the shutdown ends soon, layoffs are in store. President Trump declared repeatedly that “Republican priorities” would remain defended from cuts. He went on to laud his administration’s efforts to keep some funding levels steady while cutting others.
Additionally, the President has already paused or reduced $28 billion in federal funding for infrastructure and energy projects in Democrat-leaning states such as California, Illinois, and New York during this shutdown. This strategy appears designed to force Democrats to the negotiating table. It ignores grave implications for the more than two million federal workers and critical federal services.
The standoff just keeps intensifying. Democrats are holding up the omnibus spending bill in hopes of forcing Republicans to come to the table and negotiate meaningful reforms on healthcare and other issues. The ongoing budget and program funding uncertainties have injected considerable uncertainty into the future workforce of federal agencies. This has an outsized negative effect on their operational capabilities.
