Washington — The pinnacle of the White Home Workplace of Administration and Finances stated Friday that the Trump administration might be pausing greater than $11 billion in Military Corps of Engineers tasks, together with in 4 Democratic-led cities, persevering with its efforts to extend stress on Democrats because the authorities shutdown is poised to increase into one other week.
“The Democrat shutdown has drained the Military Corps of Engineers’ potential to handle billions of {dollars} in tasks. The Corps might be instantly pausing over $11 billion in lower-priority tasks & contemplating them for cancellation, together with tasks in New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore,” Russ Vought, director of the finances workplace, wrote on X.
He stated extra info would come from the Military Corps of Engineers. It is unclear whether or not the “lower-priority tasks” being paused embrace others past these in New York, San Francisco, Baltimore and Boston, that are all situated in states represented by Democrats within the Senate.
Vought has been concentrating on federal {dollars} going to tasks in Democratic-led cities and states for the reason that early days of the shutdown, which entered its seventeenth day on Friday and is about to proceed into subsequent week. The Trump administration has to this point frozen roughly $18 billion for a pair of infrastructure tasks in New York Metropolis, canceled $8 billion for climate-related efforts in 16 states and withheld $2.1 billion for infrastructure tasks in Chicago. All the states that may profit from the funds are represented by Democrats within the Senate.
Vought has additionally overseen a plan to put off hundreds of federal staff amid the continued shutdown. Federal businesses started issuing reduction-in-force notices final week, and Vought estimated that the quantity of presidency staff impacted might exceed 10,000.
A federal decide, nevertheless, briefly blocked the Trump administration from shifting ahead with the job cuts, saying throughout a listening to in San Francisco that they seemed to be politically motivated.
The Trump administration’s strikes seem geared toward ramping up the stress on Democratic lawmakers to help a GOP-backed stopgap funding measure. Democrats have resisted backing the plan, which handed the Home final month, and are as an alternative pushing for an extension of enhanced well being care tax credit, that are set to run out on the finish of the yr. Additionally they need to undo cuts to Medicaid that had been a part of Mr. Trump’s “One Huge Lovely Invoice Act,” handed earlier this yr.
Democrats have to this point been unmoved by the stress by the Trump administration, with a tenth vote within the Senate to resolve the logjam failing on Thursday.
