US agencies told to prepare for mass firing as govt shutdown looms amid Trump-Democrat tussle

The White House asked federal agencies on Wednesday to prepare plans for mass firings during a possible government shutdown next week, marking a sharp departure from the temporary furloughs of workers typically seen during past shutdowns.

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent the memo on Wednesday to federal agencies and asked them to identify programs, projects and activities where discretionary funding will lapse on October 1 if the US Congress does not pass legislation to keep the federal government open.

“Programs that did not benefit from an infusion of mandatory appropriations will bear the brunt of a shutdown,” the OMB said in the memo, which the White House provided.

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It was not immediately clear whether the White House was trying to take advantage of the shutdown to advance President Donald Trump’s push to slash the federal workforce, or whether it was a high-stakes negotiating tactic to force Democrats to agree to pass the Republicans’ funding legislation.

Agencies were told to submit their proposed reduction-in-force plans to the OMB and to issue notices to employees even if they would otherwise be excepted or furloughed during a lapse in funding.

The OMB memo was earlier reported by Politico.

Trump on Tuesday scrapped a meeting with top congressional Democratic leaders to discuss government funding, raising the risk of a partial government shutdown beginning next week. Both Republicans and Democrats have blamed each other for the impasse.

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Upon taking office in January, Trump launched a campaign to downsize the 2.4-million-strong federal civilian workforce, which he says is bloated and inefficient.

Roughly 300,000 federal civilian workers will have left their jobs by the end of 2025, Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told Reuters in August.

About 154,000 of those employees accepted a buyout and are slated to drop off the US government’s payroll on September 30, the last day of the federal government’s fiscal year. That date is also the deadline for Trump and Congress to reach an agreement on federal spending to avert a shutdown.