Democrats Caved to Keep the Government Open in March. Now They’re Changing Their Tune.

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It has become almost a routine part of politics^[2] over the past decade: Every now and then, Congress reaches an impasse on funding the government and it teeters on the edge of shutting down. You might even remember when it did actually shut down, fully in 2013^[3] and partially in 2018^[4]. Maybe the headlines about looming shutdown deadlines feel like old hat, at this point.

Now, as the government is careening toward shutting down^[5] at midnight tonight, the stakes are different than they have been in past years: One of the most powerful men in government^[6] has made it clear he wants to dismantle said government, and the shutdown might just give him an opening to go wild making cuts. Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, was one of the architects of Project 2025^[7], which called for extensive reductions to the federal government.

Usually, when the government shuts down, workers in nonessential agencies get furloughed—meaning their employment is temporarily paused, but they’ll be reinstated once the government reopens. But this week, Vought has indicated that he would use a shutdown as an excuse to permanently reduce the headcount. In a memo last week^[8], he urged federal agency officials to issue Reduction in Force notices—i.e., layoffs^[9]—for those working on programs that run out of funding on Oct. 1, don’t have other sources of funding, and are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.” Trump put more of a point on it Tuesday, threatening there will be “a lot” of firings^[10].

Back in March, the last time a shutdown was looming, the prospect of giving Vought an opening to take apart the government scared Democrats into signing off on Republicans’ bill to fund the government through September. “Under a shutdown, the Trump administration would have full authority to deem whole agencies, programs, and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff with no promise that they would ever be rehired,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said^[15] at the time. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said^[16] Schumer’s decision was a “slap in the face.”

Just six months later, Democrats are taking a different stance on the prospect of a shutdown under Vought’s watch: He’s going to make these cuts whether or not the government shuts down, so they shouldn’t let themselves be swayed. “It’s sick,” Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin told me. “But they have been dismantling the government and attacking federal workers since they took office in January. There’s nothing new there.” By the end of December, the New York Times^[17] estimates about 300,000 federal workers will have left their jobs, either because they were fired or resigned. Some workers have successfully sued and gotten their jobs back, but the Supreme Court has largely enabled the Trump administration to fire as it pleases. Over the summer, the court allowed^[18] 1,400 employees of the Department of Education to be fired, despite the president holding no unilateral authority to dismantle entire federal agencies created by Congress.

After a meeting at the White House with Republican and Democratic leadership, Schumer said^[20] the GOP’s bill “has not one iota of Democratic input.” Democrats want the funding bill to reverse cuts to Medicaid that were made in the Big Beautiful Bill Act and want subsidies for health care plans in the Affordable Care Act, a message the party is trying to hammer home to voters.

The “Trump Admin has already done everything (legal and illegal) to fire federal workers whose role or loyalty is insufficiently MAGA,” Virginia Rep. James Walkinshaw wrote on X^[21]. He added that a shutdown doesn’t give the Trump administration “additional legal authority to fire or RIF.”

As soon as news broke about Vought’s memo, Democratic House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries called^[22] him “a malignant political hack” and said Democrats “will not be intimidated by your threat to engage in mass firings.” Raskin, whose district represents over 55,000 federal workers, told me his constituents have asked him not to “give in to these bullies” and want him and all Congressional Democrats to hold the line, even if that means shutting the government down.

Democrats effectively believe that Vought’s threat of mass layoffs isn’t serious, and that he’s going to continue dismantling the government regardless of what they do about a shutdown. They may be right. They may not be. Either way, thousands of federal workers—and millions of people who depend on a functional government—are about to find out.

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