Shutdown strategy: OMB threatens further layoffs as Dems balk

The Atlantic reports that “275,000 federal workers—more than a tenth of the workforce—will have voluntarily left the civil service by the end of December,” according to OPM on background. That person described the RIF as “the largest and most effective workforce-reduction plan in history.” Now comes a shutdown, which could allow OMB Director Russell Vought to enact further reductions. According to a White House official, Vought seeks to “hurt the bureaucracy; he’s wanted to shrink the bureaucracy.”

While Vought’s threat to downsize the federal workforce during a shutdown may have been a failed negotiation tactic, Democrats are largely unified behind their demand that GOP extend Affordable Care Act subsidies. After seeing Trump “maneuver to cancel congressionally approved spending” and receive the “Supreme Court’s blessing to reshape the federal bureaucracy by executive order,” the Dems aren’t likely to cave.

And so, the standoff. While last time, Trump said of the government, “I’ll be the one to shut it down,” this time he’s more adept at the blame-game, saying “These people are crazy, the Democrats … So if it has to shut down, it’ll have to shut down, but they’re the ones that are shutting down.”