US Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that federal budget cuts would be deeper as the government shutdown continues, adding to the uncertainty weighing on hundreds of thousands of people already furloughed without pay amid a persistent gridlock in Congress.
As the federal blockade enters its 12the Today, he warned that the new budget cuts would be “painful,” even as he said earlier this week that the Trump administration was working to ensure the military’s salaries were paid and that some services would be preserved for low-income Americans, including food assistance.
Still, hundreds of thousands of public workers have been furloughed in recent days, and in a court filing Friday, the Office of Management and Budget announced that more than 4,000 federal workers would soon be laid off.
“The longer this lasts, the greater the budget cuts will be. This is not a situation we appreciate. “It’s not something we’re looking forward to, but the Democrats have given us some pretty tough cards,” Vance said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures.
Unions have already filed a lawsuit to stop President Donald Trump’s aggressive move, which goes far beyond what usually happens during a government shutdown, further stoking tensions between Republicans, who control Congress, and the Democratic minority.
The paralysis began on 1er October after Democrats rejected a short-term funding solution and demanded that the bill include an extension of federal health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. The expiration of these subsidies at the end of the year will result in monthly cost increases for millions of people.
Donald Trump and Republican leaders have declared themselves open to negotiations on health subsidies, but insist on the need to reopen the House of Representatives first.
For the moment, negotiations are almost non-existent. Entrenched as always, the leaders of the two parties in the House of Representatives accused each other during rival Sunday interventions on the program Fox News Sunday.
“We have made it clear repeatedly that we will speak with anyone, anytime, anywhere. Republicans control the House, Senate and presidency. It’s unfortunate that they took such an approach,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Johnson blames Democrats
House Speaker Mike Johnson blamed Democrats, saying they “seem indifferent” to the consequences of the government shutdown.
PHOTO ALEX WROBLEWSKI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Mike Johnson
“They are doing everything they can to distract the American people from the simple fact that they have chosen a partisan fight in order to prove to their rising Marxist base in the Democratic Party that they are ready to fight Donald Trump and the Republicans,” he said.
Progressive activists, meanwhile, expressed new support for the Democratic Party’s position in fighting government shutdown.
Ezra Levin, co-founder of the leading progressive protest group Indivisible, said he was “pleased with the strength of the Democratic position.” He pointed to fractures within the Republican Party, recalling that Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly warned last week that health insurance premiums would skyrocket for average Americans — including her own adult children — if nothing was done.
“Donald Trump and the Republican Party rightly take responsibility for the lockdown and impending premium hikes,” Mr. Levin said.
Yet the Trump administration and its allies in Congress appear unwilling to give in to Democrats’ demands or back down from their threats to use the opportunity to impose deeper cuts to the federal workforce.
Thousands of employees at the departments of Education, Treasury, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, are expected to receive layoff notices, according to spokespeople for those agencies and union representatives for federal workers.
“We hear a lot of Democratic senators wondering how Donald Trump can fire all these federal employees. Well, Democrats gave us a choice between, on the one hand, paying low-income women their food allowances and paying our troops, and, on the other hand, paying federal workers,” Mr. Vance said.
Democrats say the layoffs are illegal and unnecessary.
“They don’t have to act like this. They don’t have to punish people who shouldn’t be in this situation,” Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
