Most employees at the Small Business Administration were working during the shutdown, but some of the nearly 25 percent who were furloughed appeared to have fashioned a specifically-worded response to emails received on Wednesday — an automated reply that put the blame on Senate Democrats for their absence.
“I am out of office for the foreseeable future because Senate Democrats voted to block a clean federal funding bill (H.R. 5371), leading to a government shutdown that is preventing the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) from serving America’s 36 million small businesses,” the out-of-office response read.
In response to a request for comment about the language, an agency spokeswoman’s automatic reply echoed the same message, with key figures highlighted in bold typeface.
“Every day that Senate Democrats continue oppose a clean funding bill, they are stopping an estimated 320 small businesses from accessing $170 million in SBA-guaranteed funding,” the response continued.
According to the agency’s shutdown plan, processing certain loan applications and loan guarantees would stop while the government is shut down.
The agency also posted the same message on its website on Wednesday.
In previous shutdowns, federal agencies have left the politics to the politicians. But this year, President Trump’s partisanship has spread to the typically nonpartisan federal work force. This could violate a federal law designed to ensure that the federal work force operates free of political influence or coercion, federal employment experts say.
The departments of Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development also updated their websites on Wednesday with notifications that lay the blame for the shutdown on Democrats as well.
Eileen Sullivan is a Times reporter covering the changes to the federal work force under the Trump administration.
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