Shutdown

NPR - Now three days into the government shutdown, neither side, Democratic nor Republican, shows signs of giving up ground. The Trump administration has stated that it will take this opportunity to fire federal workers. The GOP-led Senate is expected to vote for the fourth time on partisan stopgap bills. At least seven Democrats are needed to reach the required 60-vote threshold today. So far, only three Senate Democrats have defected to side with Republicans in the votes.

🎧 The majority of the Democratic caucus has expressed that they won’t help unless Republicans address expiring subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, NPR’s Claudia Grisales tells Up First. Subsidies don’t expire until the end of the year, but open enrollment is next month, which is the driving force behind Democrats' argument that it needs to be handled now. The GOP insists that they should pass a short-term continuing resolution and subsidies will go into a separate bill. Democrats worry there’s a chance this option is a bait and switch, Grisales says.

High Country News -   With the federal government in a shutdown, the Forest Service has paused much of the wildfire preparation and prevention work it does on its 193 million acres of national forest. 

A Forest Service contingency plan, current as of Sept. 30, calls for continued wildfire response. But the work necessary to reduce the fuels for massive wildfires, including prescribed burns, is on hold. Prescribed burns are an important tool to burn excess vegetation, keep landscapes healthy and reduce the risk of destructive wildfires. But starting last week, some Forest Service staff were told not to conduct burns in preparation for a potential shutdown. 

“We were told, ‘No ignitions,’” said a Forest Service fire management officer, who didn’t want to be named for fear of losing his job. “‘Don’t even start.’” 

Axios -  President Trump is seizing on the government shutdown as an "unprecedented opportunity" to consolidate control in the Oval Office, accelerating a trend toward unchecked power, Axios' Zachary Basu writes...

• Many Democrats see the shutdown as a necessary evil to slow Trump's steamrolling of democratic norms and independent institutions. So far, the standoff is only emboldening the White House.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was meeting yesterday with White House budget chief Russ Vought to discuss what "Democrat agencies" should get cuts.

• Trump flaunted Vought's role in Project 2025 ("he of PROJECT 2025 Fame") — the hard-right blueprint for expanding executive power that Trump disavowed during the campaign.
• For Vought, the shutdown offers a unique opening: a live test of theories he has spent years refining on how to weaken Congress, purge the bureaucracy and concentrate power in the presidency.

Already, Vought has announced the termination of nearly $8 billion in funding for clean-energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 and have Democratic senators.

• He also has frozen $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects, a dig at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
• Legal challenges are inevitable: Congress controls the power of the purse, and federal officials have warned privately that Vought's plans for mass firings during the shutdown may violate appropriations law....

💬After contacting the White House press office for comment, Axios received an automated reply warning of delays "due to staff shortages resulting from the Democrat Shutdown." .... Share this story.

Time -   One problem with the President’s plan: enacting permanent staffing cuts during a shutdown may be illegal under federal law. If Trump moves forward with layoffs, his action could be mired in court for months.

Trump and other Administration officials began last month threatening widespread layoffs of federal workers in the event of a shutdown. On Thursday, Trump seemed to relish the position he found himself in, with Senate Democrats depriving Republicans of the handful of votes they need to keep the government funded. “I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent,” Trump wrote, giving a nod to Vought’s role as the lead author of Project 2025, a blueprint for remaking the federal government he’s largely followed since taking office but disavowed during his campaign. “I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”

When White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked what parts of the government Trump was referring to as “Democrat agencies,” she said the White House is looking at “agencies that don’t align with this Administration’s values that we feel are a waste of the taxpayer’s dollars.”  The day before, Leavitt had told reporters, “we believe that layoffs are imminent.”

Normally during a shutdown, a large portion of the federal workforce is furloughed on a temporary basis until Congress passes a spending bill to reopen the government and give workers back pay. Many agencies have published their plans for how many workers will be temporarily sent home during this shutdown. Agencies slated to furlough the largest percentages of their workers are the Environmental Protection Agency, the Education Department, the Commerce Department, the Labor Department, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

NPR - The Labor Department’s monthly report on jobs and unemployment has been postponed by the government shutdown. Typically, the report is released on the first Friday of the month and includes information about how many jobs were added or subtracted from each industry. 

🎧 Job growth has slowed down in recent months, and forecasters had expected today’s report to indicate that employers added around 50,000 last month, says NPR’s Scott Horsley. That would be more jobs than August’s numbers, but a slowdown compared to this time last year. A key question for policymakers is whether the U.S. is adding enough jobs to keep pace with the labor force and prevent the unemployment rate from rising. It is difficult to know the answer without solid data from the government.  

The Trump administration told Congress that the president has "determined" that the U.S. is in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels. 

NBC News -  Furloughed federal employees won’t be paid until Congress passes legislation to fund the government. And with neither side showing signs of budging as the shutdown enters its third day, some federal employees say they are "sad," "scared" and "afraid." 

While most of the furloughed employees won't be allowed to work during the shutdown, others who are deemed essential — such as members of the military and airport security screeners — will continue working without pay.  Federal workers typically receive back pay once the government reopens, but that requires congressional approval.

In addition to the uncertainty around paychecks, the Trump administration has threatened to use the shutdown as a pretext to carry out more mass firings. That's left federal workers, already drained and demoralized by months of layoffs and funding cuts, scrambling to figure out how to cope with the possibility of weeks without pay and a new round of layoffs, according to nearly two dozen federal workers who reached out to NBC News.

The wife of a Department of Homeland Security worker in Ohio said that her bank rejected her request for a deferment on her mortgage. Like nearly all federal employees whom NBC News spoke with, she asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation by the Trump administration, which has publicly fired federal workers it has deemed as being against its agenda. 

"I was never afraid to speak my mind before, I never felt afraid to talk. Now, people are afraid," an Arizona TSA worker said, explaining her concerns over speaking publicly about how the shutdown is impacting her. She will have to continue working without pay during the shutdown. Read the full story.

Roll Call -  Unlike most federal employees, members of Congress still collect a paycheck while the government is shuttered, thanks to constitutional provisions. That’s not a good look, many acknowledge. 

Rep. Mike Kennedy, R-Utah, for example, introduced a bill Tuesday that would prohibit paying lawmakers during a shutdown. Others have floated similar proposals over the years, including one from Reps. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., that would dock their pay during a funding lapse or debt default.

“While our neighbors face missed paychecks or furlough, Members of Congress continue to draw full salaries,” Vindman said in a statement Monday. “That is plain wrong and why I am doing my part by declining my pay and leading a bill to hold Members of Congress to the same standards as everyone else.”

Vindman and Fitzpatrick are among a growing list who have asked the Chief Administrative Officer to defer or withhold their pay during the shutdown. Asked by reporters on Wednesday if he is advising his caucus to make that move, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said it’s a question for each member to decide. Asked what he himself would do, Jeffries said he expects the shutdown “will be resolved well in advance of our next paycheck.”