Trump's Mob Tactics in the Government Shutdown Fight
Nice government you’ve got there. Shame if anything were to happen to it. Maybe some more federal employees disappear. I don’t want to do it. You are forcing my hand. But you know, I’ve done it before.
This, in a nutshell, was the White House negotiation strategy over the government shutdown. They offered no concessions, and Trump repeated refused to meet with Democratic leaders until right before the deadline. Instead, they engaged in hostage-taking. Russ Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget, promised mass firing of federal employees if Democrats didn’t vote for a continuing resolution to keep the government open. He issued a memo to agencies blaming Democrats for the shutdown, and saying that programs where funding has run out “are no longer statutorily required to be carried out.” He encouraged agency heads to consider firing employees who work on those programs.
Shutdowns, like debt ceilings, are a peculiarly American contrivance to undermine its own governance. Other rich countries typically do not stop providing services or paying their employees when their political parties cannot pass a budget. Indeed, in parliamentary systems, it is the politicians, not the public employees, who pay the price for a budget impasse, since this typically triggers an election.
But ever since President Carter’s Attorney General, Benjamin Civiletti, decided that budget impasses demanded government shutdowns, they have become an increasingly common feature of American politics.
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