Trump Administration Remains Quiet Amid Approaching US Government Shutdown
US government shutdown: Washington, which is eight days away from the 15th partial shutdown since 1981, is in familiar territory with a significant difference: President Donald Trump’s administration has not made public its plans for what will continue and what will stop if Congress does not take action.
This year, when the fiscal year ends on September 30, the Office of Management and Budget requested that federal agencies revise their contingency plans to reflect their operations in the event that money is no longer available. Law enforcement and air traffic control operations have continued during previous shutdowns, whereas finance regulators have furloughed the great bulk of their employees.
Prior to previous shutdowns, such intentions were often communicated weeks in advance. However, as of Monday, neither the public nor Congress had received many copies of the updated revisions, and the White House website devoted to those plans remained empty.
When asked whether these preparations would be made public or if shutdown plans are different from those of past years, the White House and OMB did not reply.
ederal Shutdown Plans Reveal Workforce Impact as Funding Battle Continues in Senate
According to Rachel Snyderman, managing director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, “shutdowns create tremendous amounts of uncertainty for federal workers and local economies.” She also noted that these shutdown plans include information on who gets furloughed and who turns up to work with or without pay.
Snyderman, a career worker at OMB under many administrations, said that “there is no substitute for how the government would operate in a shutdown without the visibility that these plans provide.”
Last week, a temporary financing package to extend funding until November 21 was approved by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives; but, it was unsuccessful in the Senate, where Republicans control 53 of the 100 seats. Democrats contend that this funding package must address healthcare concerns, while Republicans accuse Democrats of stalling the financing because they oppose the president.
The Senate is not expected to return to Washington until September 29, so both houses are away for the whole week.
NEED FOR PLANS
Additionally, these plans provide Congress with guidance on how the executive branch will adhere to the Antideficiency Act, a legislation from 1884 that forbids the federal government from making expenditures without authorized appropriations.
In a statement, Michigan Senator Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee that is in charge of shutdown operations, said, “The Trump Administration’s Office of Management and Budget must immediately release these updated contingency plans with the threat of a possible government shutdown looming.”
“In their absence, Congress and the public are utterly unaware of how the Administration would adhere to the law while still performing vital national security duties,” he said.
Federal agencies that receive funding from discretionary spending are affected by government shutdowns, but government operations that rely on mandatory spending, like Social Security payments, Medicare health programs, and interest payments on the nation’s debt, which together make up around three-quarters of the approximately $7 trillion federal budget, are largely unaffected.
OMB Shutdown Alerts and Trump-Era Federal Workforce Shakeup
OMB typically begins informing agencies on the likelihood of a shutdown, legislative options, and other relevant developments a week before to an appropriations shortfall.
According to the Partnership for Public Service, a group that monitors federal workforce trends, the Trump administration has restructured the federal government by altering priorities and has caused an estimated 300,000 federal workers to leave this year via buyouts, layoffs, and firings.
Additionally, the OMB has contested the federal financial authority that Congress is granted by the Constitution via the power of the purse. Russ Vought, the head of OMB, openly advocated in July that this financing process should be “less bipartisan,” which shook off funding discussions between Republican and Democratic appropriators on Capitol Hill.
Agencies have considerable discretion over which employee categories to furlough, such as the legal exemption that permits jobs to remain if they are “necessary to protect life and property.”
Joe Carlile, a former senior Democratic budget official, stated, “The boundaries of what’s in bounds are pretty well settled, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an attempt to try to test those bounds as that would be consistent with what we’ve seen from this administration related to appropriations.”
Senate Aides Confirm Backup Plans Submitted Amid Trump-Era Shutdown Concerns
While other agencies have not provided any updates, three Senate committee aides said they have been told by some agencies under their purview that these backup plans were submitted to OMB for approval and that the logistics were comparable to plans from prior administrations.
The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan watchdog supported by Congress, found that some of the Trump administration’s decisions to spend funds for the National Park Service and on food assistance programs at the Agriculture Department violated the law. The last government shutdown occurred during Trump’s first term, which lasted 34 days from the end of December 2018 into January 2019.