President Trump signaled on Tuesday that he could try to maximize the pain of a fast-approaching government shutdown, threatening to leverage the imminent closure to fire “a lot” of civil servants and slash a range of federal programs and benefits that he disfavors.
The latest round of ultimatums, which came hours before government funding was set to expire, underscored the extent of the political dysfunction in Washington. It quickly prompted a set of unions representing federal employees to file a lawsuit seeking to block the administration from conducting mass layoffs during the shutdown.
“We’re doing well as a country, so the last thing we want to do is shut it down, but a lot of good can come down from shutdowns. We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday.
For families, businesses and the broader U.S. economy, the consequences of a shutdown starting Oct. 1 could be vast, upending everything from some food safety inspections to the ability to visit national parks. But the hardships could prove especially acute for millions of federal employees and active military service members, whose lives are often upended during a government closure.
Unless Congress reaches a last-minute deal, roughly 750,000 civilian federal workers will be furloughed each day beginning on Wednesday, the start of the new fiscal year, according to congressional estimates. Other workers, from military personnel to airport baggage claims inspectors, must continue to report for duty because they hold vital roles, but they will not receive a paycheck until funding is restored.
On Tuesday, the White House sought to raise the stakes of a shutdown even further, after Mr. Trump doubled down on a threat to fire civilian federal employees if funding lapses. In doing so, the president suggested he could also leverage the fiscal stalemate in other ways and “do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them,” referring to Democrats.
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