In previous government shutdowns, federal employees were furloughed and not paid during it but when the shutdown ended, they were brought back and given their back pay. This time Trump first said that they may not get any back pay and then upped the ante by saying that he will begin firing them. He and the Republicans seem to think that this will put pressure on the Democrats to acquiesce to their demand to approve a short-term spending bill that will result in cutting health care subsidies under Obamacare that made health insurance premiums more affordable.
Over the weekend, people started getting fired. It seems like the first firings are targeting health care workers and had been planned even before the shutdown.
Dozens of CDC employees were notified late Friday night that they were being terminated, according to several former and current CDC officials and employees.
The agency’s Washington office was terminated, as well as employees in the Global Health Center and the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, according to a current CDC official and a former administration official with direct knowledge of the reduction-in-force notices.
…At least some officers in the Epidemic Intelligence Service were dismissed, according to the CDC official and a separate former agency employee with knowledge of the terminations. The EIS officers are nicknamed “disease detectives” because they are frequently charged with investigating outbreaks and are part of a storied CDC training program.
…Leaders in the agency’s Public Health Infrastructure Center also received notices, as well as the employees in the Office of Science, the CDC official said. A second former administration official confirmed that some leadership in the PHIC office had been terminated.
…The Department of Health and Human Services began laying off between 1,100 and 1,200 employees on Friday, according to a court document the Trump administration filed late in the day.
…Along with HHS, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Education and the Department of Housing and Urban Development had the largest number of terminated employees, according to the court document.
But the usually pusillanimous Democratic leadership is holding firm so far, after getting blasted for caving during the previous shutdown threat.
“Let’s be blunt: nobody’s forcing Trump and Vought to do this,” Schumer said in a statement. “They don’t have to do it; they want to. They’re callously choosing to hurt people – the workers who protect our country, inspect our food, respond when disasters strike. This is deliberate chaos.”
…Democrats are maximizing the leverage they have in the upper chamber by refusing to reopen the government until premium tax credits for Affordable Care Act health plans are extended into next year. They also want cuts to the Medicaid program for poor and disabled Americans reversed, funding to public media outlets such as PBS and NPR restored and Donald Trump’s use of “pocket rescissions” to slash spending curbed.
…“The Democrats, I think, have taken in the blowback, have understood where their folks want them to go, and are actually taking it and fighting back. And it’s a sight to see. It’s a welcome strategic shift,” Ezra Levin, co-executive director of progressive organizing group Indivisible, said.
In March, Schumer opted to work with Republicans on keeping the government open, prompting Indivisible to call for him to step aside as minority leader. Months later, Levin says his group is coordinating with Schumer’s office on actions to support Democratic lawmakers as the shutdown wears on, and believes the party should not compromise on its demands.
Not only are Democrats’ demands “wildly popular”, Republicans are not to be trusted to honor any agreement, he said. Trump and his allies in Congress have made clear their interest in rescissions packages, which can be passed on a party-line vote, to cut spending approved with bipartisan support. After passing one in July that clawed back $9bn in funding for public media and foreign aid, Johnson said he is considering putting together another.
…“We’ve got the goods. We are fighting for popular things. The Republicans are closing rural hospitals, increasing costs and giving a lawless administration more power to do what it wants. That’s a losing hand, and we want to see Democrats fight back.”
Trump and the Republicans simply cannot be trusted to honor any agreement. The only language they understand is force..
The people implementing these policies are wealthy and represent the wealthy who can afford to buy whatever health care they may need for themselves. Hence they think that measures that improve public health in general can be terminated without harming them or their clan. But good public health infrastructure protects rich and poor alike, just as mass vaccinations also protect the unvaccinated by reducing the chances that they will encounter an infected person.
But these people do not care. They are so ideologically blinkered in their determination to destroy any government services that do not benefit them that future negative consequences are ignored.
The only language they understand is force.
They seem fairly fluent in money. (Not in functional economics, but in tangible gimme!)
I’m astounded. Has the party of hand-wringing and capitulation really grown a spine?
I wonder if eventually we’ll end up at a point where the US doesn’t actually break up, but the Federal Government doesn’t actually do anything? Other than to collect tax dollars in order to prop up a massive but largely useless military and to provide giveaways to useless rich people, some of who aren’t Americans, leaving everything else to the states? Boy will that be “fun”.