by Ben Whedon
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday warned that the government would implement mass layoffs in the event of a shutdown, warning that Democrats demanding changes to a continuing resolution would be responsible.
The fiscal year is set to end on Tuesday. While the House approved a bill to keep the government afloat, it did not survive Senate scrutiny. Trump has already implemented both mass firings and myriad buyouts to reduce the size of the federal government, but a shutdown could see the federal workforce shrink further.
“There will be [layoffs] if Democrats don’t keep the government open,” Leavitt said during the daily press briefing. “We are nearing a government shutdown; we are nearing a funding deadline. The president wants to make this deadline. He wants to keep this government open.”
“The president is giving Democrat leadership one last chance to be reasonable, to come to the White House today to try to talk about this, and now is not the time to try to get political points against Donald Trump,” she went on.
Trump himself has insisted that Democrats seek additional funding to provide health care to illegal immigrants. He is not expected to agree to such a concession amid his ongoing deportation efforts, however.
At least 2 million people have left the U.S. voluntarily or through deportation since Trump returned to the White House.
The federal government has shutdown twice in the 21st century. The first time it shutdown was in 2013 when Barack Obama was president. This shutdown lasted 16 days. During the shutdown, an estimated 800,000 federal employees were furloughed. A poll from The Washington Post shortly after the shutdown showed 81 percent of Americans disapproved of it.
The second shutdown occurred in 2018 and 2019 during Trump’s first presidency, lasting 35 days. This shutdown represented the longest shutdown in American history. Like in 2013, approximately 800,000 federal employees were furloughed during the shutdown. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the shutdown cost the American economy $11 billion.
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Ben Whedon is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
Photo “Karoline Leavitt” by Karoline Leavitt.
Federal government mass firings? I see that as a total win.