Office of Management and Budget (OMB) chief Russell Vought and President Donald Trump are in the midst of mapping out cuts to the federal government after lawmakers on Capitol Hill failed to reach a funding bill agreement early Wednesday morning.
Trump set the stage in the lead-up to the shutdown that the federal government is set to likely see staffing and program cuts under the shutdown, adding in a Thursday message to Truth Social that many federal agencies are a ‘political SCAM.’
‘I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,’ Trump posted.
‘I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity. They are not stupid people, so maybe this is their way of wanting to, quietly and quickly, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’ he added.
Fox News Digital spoke with Heritage Foundation’s director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, Richard Stern, Thursday morning to discuss which agencies the OMB chief would likely target for staffing cuts and if such cuts would be permanent.
How a shutdown enables cuts
Stern explained to Fox Digital that there are a pair of overlapping issues that lead to the government’s staffing size: agencies are required by various laws to provide certain services to citizens. And, separately, appropriation bills set funding floors on how much money an agency has available to spend on staff payroll.
During a shutdown, however, there is a lapse in funding, meaning agencies do not have ‘payroll floors from the funding bill,’ leaving the executive branch with discretion on how to continue providing required services to citizens, he explained.
‘Because the funding bills set effective floors per salary spending, that tends to dictate how many people work for the agencies. In the event of a shutdown, the only requirement on the administration is to ensure that the agencies provide the services and whatnot that are required by law. But those laws don’t say you need, you know, 100 staffers to write a grant or only one staffer,’ Stern told Fox Digital in a phone interview.
‘They simply say, you know, ‘There’s a grant program that has to go out the door under XYZ parameters.’ So in the event of a lapse in funding, it means that the administration … can lay out a plan saying, ‘Hey, look, you know, we think the Department of Education, for example, could do everything it is legally required to do, but do it with 10% of the workforce,’’ he continued.
If the administration determines that an agency can fulfill its legally required services to citizens with fewer people, it will subsequently send reduction in force notices, known as RIFs, to staffers.
‘If the funding was there, and if the funding law required those staff levels, then you wouldn’t be able to RIF,’ he said. ‘But in the lapse of funding, it gives the White House that opportunity.’
Permanent changes to the government are in a gray zone, however, as RIFs would not be able to take effect until after 60 days.
‘Once the RIF notices go out, you … legally need to wait 60 days before the RIF notices can be enacted,’ Stern continued. ‘Really the shutdown would have to last 60 days, beyond that, to actually act on the RIFs.’
The Heritage Foundation expert, who also serves as the conservative think tank’s acting director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, stressed that any staffing cuts are not an example of government ‘downsizing.’
‘It’s not downsizing the activities of agencies,’ he said. ‘It’s not reducing what they make available, what services they provide. It’s simply reducing the workforce that’s providing the same level and the same amount of services.’
What agencies could be targeted for cuts?
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told a gaggle of reporters Thursday that ‘thousands’ of federal employees could be laid off during the shutdown.
‘Look, it’s likely going to be in the thousands. It’s a very good question. And that’s something that the Office of Management and Budget and the entire team at the White House here, again, is unfortunately having to work on today,’ Leavitt said.
Stern pointed to a handful of agencies that will likely be targeted for layoffs, citing agencies that have ‘mission creeped’ their original purview into regulatory issues, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as other agencies, like the National Science Foundation, that handle grant writing for programs.
‘Probably the Department of Ed is, is kind of the poster child on this one,’ he said. ‘They’ve been talking about, they quite literally only need 10% or so on the staff.’
