The White House is planning massive and permanent layoffs of civil service staff if Congress does not pass a new US budget by September 30, according to an official document published today on the Politiko portal.
The end of this month is the deadline for voting on a budget, even if it is temporary, to avoid paralysis of the federal government - a "shutdown".
"Over the past 10 fiscal years, Congress has systematically passed the budget by September 30th at the latest with bipartisan agreement," Republican Russell Vote, director of the White House Office of Budget Management, reminded government agencies in a message.
"Unfortunately, Democrats in Congress have announced that they want to break this bipartisan trend and block the country with a series of mindless demands," he wrote.
In a document seen by Agence France-Presse, Voight asked federal agencies to prepare plans to reduce the number of employees working on programs that are currently underfunded and not in line with President Trump's "priorities."
In the event of a paralysis in the funding of federal agencies, a large part of federal services would cease to operate, and hundreds of thousands of employees would be technically unemployed, air traffic and the payment of social benefits would also be affected, writes the Agence France-Presse.
Republicans have a majority in both houses of Congress, but due to regulations in the Senate, Donald Trump's ruling party must negotiate with opposition Democrats to get at least seven of their votes.
Democrats are demanding that Republicans return the hundreds of billions of dollars they have taken from healthcare.
Republicans say they will only discuss their seven-week interim plan, which would keep the federal government funded through the end of November.
"Donald Trump has been firing federal employees since day one, not to govern, but to intimidate. That's not new and it has nothing to do with funding the government," said Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, reported the New York Times.
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