The White Home is utilizing the federal government shutdown to push aggressive plans to additional reduce the federal workforce and management spending.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The White Home is utilizing the federal government shutdown to advance plans to additional reduce the federal workforce and management spending. Price range Director Russell Vought is looking on companies to fireside staffers who had been deemed to be nonessential throughout the funding lapse. And the Trump administration says it’s freezing billions of {dollars} for initiatives in states – lots of whom voted for Kamala Harris. NPR’s Stephen Fowler joins us.
STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Good morning.
SIMON: Let’s start first with the threats to fireside federal employees. Has anybody truly been let go but?
FOWLER: Properly, to date, they’re simply threats. Here is White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt talking to Morning Version yesterday.
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KAROLINE LEAVITT: The president is assembly with the Workplace of Administration and Price range to attempt to perceive what companies are important, what companies don’t align with the administration’s priorities and values.
FOWLER: Here is the factor to consider although, Scott. Any of those reductions in drive, or RIF, efforts that may come must be from the leaders of those federal companies. President Trump cannot make them occur, and neither can Russ Vought, the top of the Workplace of Administration and Price range. RIF guidelines are fairly explicit in regards to the period of time and see they’ve to present earlier than they will take impact. There’s additionally a lawsuit that is been filed from federal employees union saying that the specter of firing employees, particularly throughout a shutdown, is against the law.
SIMON: The administration’s additionally introduced a number of grants and initiatives are on maintain simply up to now few days and highlighted some in districts which can be represented by Democrats. Is that associated? How is it associated to the shutdown?
FOWLER: Properly, it is dependent upon who you ask. The Power Division says billions of {dollars} for clear vitality grants are being canceled due to a overview that discovered they, quote, “didn’t adequately advance the nation’s vitality wants, weren’t economically viable and wouldn’t present a optimistic return on funding of taxpayer {dollars}.” Others have famous that these initiatives are in additional than a dozen states, together with Minnesota and New York – all of them, Vice President Kamala Harris received in final 12 months’s presidential election. The timing of the announcement comes because the administration is doing a full-court press to get Democrats to get on board with their plans to reopen the federal government.
SIMON: Stephen, is that this lots just like the DOGE effort that the president launched in January?
FOWLER: Properly, that is the argument that Democrats are making. Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries stated this in an NPR interview earlier this week.
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HAKEEM JEFFRIES: Properly, the Trump administration has been uncontrolled since Day 1. They have been laying folks off since Day 1. They have been firing federal staff since Day 1, they usually’ve been violating the regulation since Day 1.
FOWLER: DOGE’s work to cancel contracts and direct companies to slash their workforce is an extension of Trump and Vought’s long-held perception that the federal government needs to be smaller and spend much less on issues they do not agree with. Even because the White Home has tried to bypass the spending and budgeting energy given to Congress, which Republicans have to date allowed to occur, it is price noting that companies have been hiring again tons of of employees they let go earlier this 12 months, and Treasury knowledge reveals spending has truly elevated as a substitute of decreased. That is as a result of most of what the federal authorities spends its cash on is necessary objects, like Social Safety and Medicare – common packages and issues it might require Congress to alter.
SIMON: After all, Stephen, there have been authorities shutdowns earlier than, and new administrations attempt to change spending plans and set up new coverage priorities. Is that this shutdown that completely different?
FOWLER: Shutdowns are an inherently partisan factor. However this time, it has been notable, Scott, how Republicans are utilizing official authorities communications to assault one political occasion. Earlier this week, the administration added language to inside memos, official authorities web sites, out-of-office electronic mail signatures and extra accountable Democrats for the shutdown, and it is a potential violation of federal ethics legal guidelines.
As a comparability, in 2013, former President Obama despatched a letter to federal employees forward of a shutdown, thanking them for what they do and chiding Congress for being accountable, with out mentioning Republicans particularly.
SIMON: NPR’s Stephen Fowler, who’s a part of our staff that covers the restructuring of the federal authorities. Thanks a lot.
FOWLER: Thanks.
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