WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is making this government shutdown unlike any the nation has ever seen, giving his budget office rare authority to pick winners and losers — who gets paid or fired, which programs are cut or survive — in an unprecedented restructuring across the federal workforce.
As the shutdown enters its third week, the Office and Management and Budget said Tuesday it’s preparing to “batten down the hatches” with more reductions in force to come. The president calls budget chief Russ Vought the “grim reaper,” and Vought has seized on the opportunity to fund Trump’s priorities, paying the military while slashing jobs in health, education, the sciences and other areas with actions that have been criticized as illegal and are facing court challenges.
Trump said programs favored by Democrats are being targeted and “they’re never going to come back, in many cases.”
Speaking during an event at the White House, Trump added, “We’re being able to do things that we were unable to do before.”
With Congress at a standstill — the Republican-led House refusing to return to session and the Senate stuck in a loop of failed votes to reopen government as Democrats demand health care funding — the budget office quickly filled the void.