As the United States appears to be heading straight into a third week of “shutdown,” with no end in sight, White House Budget Director (OBM) Russ Vought announced on X that “staff reductions have begun” for federal officials.
Their services clarified to AFP that these were “important” referrals, without giving figures or information on the profile of those interested.
In a statement sent to AFP, the US Department of Health indicated that some of its employees had received layoff notices.
All those affected “have been designated as non-essential within their services,” according to the text, which considers this staff reduction positive after a period of “hypertrophied bureaucracy” under the presidency of Democrat Joe Biden.
The US Department of Finance limited itself to indicating to AFP that notifications of personnel reductions had “begun” within it.
The same is happening in the Ministry of Education, an internal source told AFP.
The threat of massive layoffs in federal services has been raised by US President Donald Trump since the beginning, on October 1, of the budget blockade for which the Republican majority and the Democratic opposition mutually blame each other.
Due to a lack of budget, the “shutdown” put hundreds of thousands of American officials on official leave, because they were considered to be performing functions that were not essential to the daily functioning of the country.
In this breeding ground, the American executive threatened to carry out layoffs, stating that they would be attributable to the Democratic side in Congress, which refuses to give in on the budget.
“Scammers”
Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his House counterpart Hakeem Jeffries have previously dismissed threats of job cuts as an attempt at intimidation. They also declared that mass layoffs would not be admissible in court.
“A shutdown does not give Trump or Vought new special powers to sow more chaos or permanently weaken essential services for the American people,” Democratic Senator Patty Murray protested in a statement on Friday.
“No one should be intimidated by these criminals,” he also criticized, accusing the majority of “not wanting to sit down” to negotiate with the opposition.
Republicans propose an expansion of the current budget, with the same spending levels, while Democrats call for an expansion of subsidies for health insurance programs for low-income households.
Donald Trump’s party has a majority in both houses of Congress, but because of Senate rules, 60 votes out of 100 are needed to pass a budget. In the current state of forces, at least eight members of the opposition should support the republican text, but so far only three have done so.
Presidential majority leaders, however, hope to get more to concede as the days go by.
During the duration of the blockade, the more than 2.3 million federal officials are not paid, as are the more than 1.3 million military personnel.
The latter are not expected to receive their first paycheck on Wednesday, a deadline that should increase popular pressure on Congress and the executive, given the importance of the armed forces in US culture.
Source: BFM TV
