Trump’s Office of Management and Budget under Russell Vought has moved with more executive authority over spending, which is typically left to Congress. The administration took steps to cancel foreign aid and asserted power to withhold billions of domestic spending.
“I would expect this shutdown to look different than any other shutdown,” said Joshua Sewell, Taxpayers for Common Sense director of research and policy. He said he expects that the Trump team’s actions would be guided by what they believe achieves the most for them politically.
Trump could use a shutdown to dismantle government functions, wrote Max Stier, chief of executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit focused on improving the federal government.
If lawmakers can’t reach a deal, Stier wrote, Trump and Vought “will have enormous latitude to determine which services, programs, and employees can be sidelined, decisions that could go far beyond what has occurred during past shutdowns.”
The government has been in shutdown for months.
Except he’s going to do it anyway. It’s never “Give me what I want or I’ll hurt you” with Trump. It’s always “AND I’ll hurt you.”. That’s why negotiating with him is worthless.
Trump dismantled USAID and it’s effectively toast even though Congress is the only group legally allowed to end it. This is shit he would’ve done anyway on a different time schedule. Here’s hoping he bites off more than he can chew and loses another 5% of his base.
“Trump could use a shutdown to dismantle government functions” He already did that. We had this discussion already the last time, before Schumer and the rest folded. Then he did more of it after they folded. Why is this being trotted out as a threat again?
Because it’s the excuse for not using the filibuster they refused to get rid of for the last two congressional majorities on the grounds that they need it to block republicans when democrats are in the minority.
To get low info voters to think keeping the gov open is a good idea.
Exactly.
The awful shit is going to be awful either way, but one way is democrats helping them be awful.
They are already laying people off and have been for the whole time.
Yeah, but it’s still important people know about this memo before they lay all these people off. Schumer still seems to be going through with it:
“This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government,” he said. “These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”
Maybe I am misinformed but what’s the difference if a shutdown happens or not for people being laid off?
A RIF is not the same as a furlough and he could ask at any time for those jobs to be cut and he ether does have the authority to fire those people or he doesn’t but the shutdown doesn’t really have any effect on that
Congress loves to hold themselves hostage at the sake of federal workers and the American people. They get paid either way, go on vacation. May even give themselves a raise.
Jesus fucking Christ, stop trying to come up with more terrible ideas why the democrats should capitulate. What the actual fuck. They must not knuckle under for ANY reason. You used to be better than this, NPR.
That’s exactly how this reads.
An attempt to goad the Dems into caving.
Transparent as fuck. They need to hold strong.
I don’t think they’re necessarily telling them to capitulate, but this is due to a memo released a few days ago.
It might be an empty threat or it might be one of those damned if you do damned if you don’t situations.
Even if the government shuts down it’s important people understand this is most likely coming. It’s better for people to be angry about this before the fact so they know who to blame once the shutdown happens, bc the GOP is definitely going to try and blame the layoffs on the Democrats as if this was their fault for allowing the shutdown.
My take on it, they’re not going to just layoff people because there is a shutdown. They want to lay all of these people off eventually regardless of funding the government.
If they’re going to lay them off either way, then it’s not really a threat nor is it part of the budget discussions. They’ve played their hand and it doesn’t really shift the discussion.
They’re also ignoring the limits of their powers, so shutting down won’t give them any more powers than they’ve been taking either.
And writing about giving the administration “talking points” is even dumber. Since they lie about everything being the left’s fault already anyway.
Isn’t this the same excuse they used the last time they gave him everything he wanted, without a fight? Are we doing it again, then?
Doesn’t the Regime already do this via Executive Order which may or may not be challenged later? Why would they need a ahutdown?
Is a shutdown each year now a regular thing in USA? Sounds like lawmakers should legislate some budget protections.
Congress hasn’t passed a full budget since 1996.
Yeah the republicans have realized that they can demand anything they want to be part of the budget so every year we have a government shutdown then lose some rights to get it up again
It’s another symptom of the dysfunction of Congress; they can’t get 60 senators to agree on a long-term funding bill.
They have legislated various protections. But it always comes down to two parties split about evenly yet needing 60% to pass…… and since it became ok to shut down the government there’s no longer an incentive to negotiate bipartisan solutions
I think the plan is to force a shutdown, then seize power saying that the legislature “can’t run the country” so trump has to do it
Only if somebody doesn’t take this as an opportunity to assassinate him.
For the betterment of the nation, of course
That made sense in the spring and is one of the reasons I was for not shutting it down then. would have just played into what he was doing. He already tore everything up though and hes not hard to read. He don’t want it. Im fine with shutdown this go round.
Fuck off with the censoring.
He will have power to decide who to pay but he will be powerless to the backlash from constituents. People are already pissed at him
