The Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday said it was preparing to “batten down the hatches” and “ride out” the government shutdown.
The declaration came in a post on X in which the OMB said it was “making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence.”
The OMB added that it would “pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait,” referring to “reductions in force.”
The message underscored the administration’s determination to maintain essential operations while pressing forward with a round of federal workforce reductions amid the ongoing budget impasse.
The comments follow a series of administration actions that have intensified the standoff between President Donald Trump and Senate Democrats, who have blocked a House-passed stopgap spending bill.
The government has entered its third week of a partial shutdown, with tens of thousands of federal employees either furloughed or working without pay.
As reported Friday by Newsmax, the administration disclosed in a California court filing that it was preparing to cut more than 4,100 additional federal employees during the shutdown.
The filing, submitted in response to a lawsuit by federal employee unions, outlined expected reductions across several major agencies, including Commerce, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Treasury.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeks to halt the planned layoffs.
Stephen Billy, a senior adviser at OMB, detailed the potential impact in a sworn declaration, citing specific agency figures ranging from 20 positions at the Environmental Protection Agency to as many as 1,446 at Treasury.
Billy noted that while some agencies were conducting preliminary planning, most of the layoffs remained under review and subject to change depending on how long the shutdown lasts.
OMB Director Russell Vought confirmed late Friday that the layoffs were underway, writing on X, “The RIFs have begun.”
Vought’s announcement followed Trump’s comments a day earlier warning that the administration would pursue permanent spending cuts if Democrats continued to resist his funding proposals.
“We’ll be making cuts that will be permanent,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting Thursday, “and we’re only going to cut Democrat programs.
“They wanted to do this, so we’ll give them a little taste of their own medicine.”
The president accused Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., of hypocrisy, saying Democrats were “having a rebellion” within their ranks as the shutdown drags on.
With both sides entrenched, the OMB’s message on Tuesday signaled a shift from seeking compromise to endurance.
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