President Trump’s budget chief Friday said mass layoffs of federal workers have begun as the government shutdown stretches on with no end in sight.
There was no immediate further confirmation and scant details about how many workers might be fired nor a breakdown of the impact on various government departments.
“The RIF’s have begun,” tweeted Russ Vought, the Office of Management and Budget chief, using the abbreviation for reductions in force, or layoffs.
A spokesperson for the budget office only said the reductions are “substantial.”
The beleaguered Education Department is among the agencies hit by the layoffs, along with the Department of Health and Human Services, spokespeople said. Both agencies have already been hit with substantial workforce reductions since President Trump returned to power in January.
Other affected agencies reportedly include the departments of Interior, Homeland Security, Treasury, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Trump and Vought have been threatening to carry out mass layoffs since the shutdown started 10 days ago, but several self-proclaimed deadlines had passed without any announcement.
Mass firings would go far beyond the normal practice during past government shutdowns, when federal workers were furloughed but restored to their jobs once the shutdown ends.
Thousands of federal workers are on furlough while others deemed essential are required to keep working, but won’t receive paychecks until the shutdown ends.
The shutdown started when Democratic senators refused to vote for a Republican stopgap spending bill to fund the government until Thanksgiving.
Democrats are demanding that the GOP and Trump negotiate over his deep cuts to health spending and extension of Obamacare subsidies, which they say is necessary to avoid massive increases in insurance premiums.
Neither the Senate nor the House of Representatives were in session Friday and there were no talks reported to end the stalemate.
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill say threats of mass layoffs will only harden Democratic resolve in the standoff and further turn public opinion against the GOP.
Democrats say the layoffs are illegal. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington) said in a statement that the “shutdown does not give Trump or Vought new, special powers” to layoff workers.
“This is nothing new, and no one should be intimidated by these crooks,” she said.
