Maine Blue Dog Jared Golden Stabs Democrats In The Back Again
Señor Trumpanzyy and Musk were on opposite sides yesterday. Trumpanzyy won and the African Nazi lost. When the House passed, 217-213, a CR to keep the government open— as Trump had ordered— Musk was pissed off. According to Wired reporters, an increasingly unpopular Musk had been expressing a preference for a government shutdown.
Musk’s logic was that a shutdown “would potentially make it easier to eliminate the jobs of hundreds of thousands of federal workers, essentially achieving a permanent shutdown… ‘A shutdown has been his preference,’ says one Republican familiar with the situation, referring to Musk. ‘I think he’s boxed in there by the president. I think it would be really hard for him to get around that.’”
Another Republican said to Wired, “You know none of this is about saving money, right? It’s all about destroying a liberal power base.”
The possible shutdown looms as Musk’s so-called DOGE has slashed its way through the government, eliminating the positions of an estimated tens of thousands of workers. If a government shutdown occurs, many federal agencies and programs would be essentially put on ice. Agencies like the FBI and others with law enforcement and security functions would largely continue to operate as normal— albeit with some government workers not being paid until after the end of the shutdown— and critical functions like the issuance of Social Security checks would not be directly affected. Every department has a shutdown plan, though, and most would be impacted.
Ahead of a shutdown, federal employees are effectively classified into essential or nonessential work, with nonessential employees furloughed and not allowed to work until the shutdown ends. According to federal agency contingency plans compiled by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service in 2023, when a federal shutdown was narrowly averted, the pool of workers who would be subject to being furloughed then numbered about 850,000, with about 410,000 of those being outside the Department of Defense.
Federal personnel costs, including military spending, amount to about $340 billion annually, so even laying off all of the third or so of federal workers considered nonessential could possibly save about $110 billion a year— a fraction of the $1 trillion in annual federal spending Musk has claimed he wants to eliminate.
Musk has spoken about removing so-called nonessential workers— many of whom perform critical tasks like inspecting food, processing applications for benefits programs, and collecting weather data—before. “If the job is not essential, or they are not doing it well, they obviously shouldn’t be on the public payroll,” Musk told reporters in late February, according to the New Yorker.
…Once federal employees have been furloughed for more than 30 calendar days, that furlough becomes subject to a reduction in force (RIF), says Nick Bednar, a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Law. Though it could be challenged, this means that after 30 days, furloughed employees are automatically kicked into RIF procedures, which prioritizes retaining employees by seniority and whether that individual is a veteran.
“If you can shut down the government for 30 days, it’s a method of pursuing a RIF,” he says. Many agencies have already been required to submit RIF plans by March 13, but a shutdown plan is likely to be even more austere, allowing for only employees deemed essential to keep working. Guidance from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) says that essential workers are those whose roles involve the “safety of human life or the protection of property or the performance of certain other types of ‘excepted work activities.’”
Bednar says that under OPM guidance, there are different ways in which agencies can reduce their manpower: an emergency furlough like a shutdown, a planned long-term furlough, and layoffs. Both planned long-term furloughs and layoffs trigger RIF procedures, as does any furlough that lasts for more than 30 days. But OPM guidance leaves unclear whether the rules or a long-term furlough would apply to an emergency one that crosses the 30-day threshold. “How an automatic RIF applies is still up for debate, because we've never seen it happen,” he says.
In a February 11 executive order, the White House ordered agency heads to develop a plan for “large-scale reductions in force” that would prioritize “all components and employees performing functions not mandated by statute or other law who are not typically designated as essential during a lapse in appropriations as provided in the Agency Contingency Plans on the Office of Management and Budget website.” The order provided a carve-out for “functions related to public safety, immigration enforcement, or law enforcement.”
“A shutdown is aligned with the goals of DOGE,” says Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “In the president's executive order, he told DOGE to focus on nonessential employees, which is to say employees who are designated as nonessential during government shutdowns.”
Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME) seems to be the Democrat most eager to stick to Republican positions. He was the only Democrat to vote for MAGA Mike's CR yesterday.
