The Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget, led by Director Russ Vought, has ordered federal agencies to prepare permanent reduction-in-force (RIF) plans — not just temporary furloughs — in case of a government shutdown.
According to a memo obtained by POLITICO, agencies must pinpoint unfunded programs that fall outside President Donald Trump’s priorities and draft termination plans.
The move marks a major escalation — shifting from a temporary pause in operations to permanent staff cuts targeting federal programs that Democrats have long protected but critics call bloated and outdated. Unsurprisingly, it has sent Senate Democrats into a tailspin.
The same Democrats who once warned that government shutdowns hurt veterans, families, the military, and children are now eagerly dragging the nation to the brink of one — all to force through a laundry list of leftist priorities.
The reason the federal government is on the verge of a shutdown is that Democrats are refusing to fund the government unless their radical demands are met. Their wish list? Roughly $1.5 trillion in new spending, according to the White House, including:
An extension of expiring Obamacare subsidies.
A reversal of hundreds of billions in Medicaid reforms passed under the GOP’s tax-and-spending overhaul.
The release of federal funds frozen by the Trump White House.
Senate Democrats are holding basic government operations hostage over partisan pet projects — the very behavior they used to rail against. “The House passed a stopgap spending measure to float federal operations through Nov. 21, but Democrats in the Senate have refused to advance it,” POLITICO noted.
Examples of Senate Democrats’ hypocrisy: In 2023, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) wrote, “There is a time and a place to debate health care, just like there is a time and place to debate energy policy and immigration and education—but not when the funding of the federal government, and all the lives that are impacted by it, hang in the balance.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) declared in 2013 that threatening a shutdown was “the last resort for those who can’t win their fights through elections.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has been particularly shameless. In 2024, he warned that a shutdown would be devastating. This month, he dismissed the Trump administration’s firings as “intimidation,” suggesting the courts would reverse them, as he added, “These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back.”
One exception for Senate Democrats has been Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who admitted that Democrats were walking into a “honey trap,” making healthcare funding a “red line” that boxed them in politically. Meanwhile, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said of Trump, “He’s recognizing the Democrats really don’t have enough leverage here to convince the American people that we should shut the government down.”
As Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) put it: “For years, Democrats have thundered from every podium, press conference and Sunday show that any government shutdown is reckless, destructive and indefensible. Whenever Congress hits a budget impasse over federal funding, Democrats have decried it as a ‘hostage situation.’ They have said shutdowns hurt families, seniors, farmers, veterans and small businesses. They have demanded compromise. Now? Those same Democrats are suddenly just fine with plunging the American people into a shutdown — because it suits their political agenda.”
