“A closure is aligned with Doge’s objectives,” said Don Moynihan, professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “In the president’s decree, he told Doge to focus on non-essential employees, that is to say employees who are designated as non-essential during government closings.”
Only one partial closure of the government, in the winter of 2018-2019, lasted more than 30 days. A report of Congress budget office estimated later That the closure of 35 days “delayed $ 18 billion in federal and suspended expenditure certain federal services, thus reducing the expected level of real GDP in the first quarter of 2019 by 8 billion dollars”.
But for the most part, if a possible stop lasts more than 30 days, the United States could enter an unknown territory. “A difficulty in assessing what will happen is that there were only 10 closures that have led to leave in American history,” explains Bednar. “Most of the lawyers we have on this question come from the 2013 closure, which was less than 30 days.”
When the government of 2013 was closed, employees who tried to challenge their agencies and continued to The back salary has almost universally lost their cases. Bednar says, however, that if the Trump administration tries to use a government closure as an excuse to definitively eliminate jobs, employees may be able to appeal the decision.
“I suspect that the greatest impact of a long -term closure is that he will encourage federal employees to leave public service as soon as possible,” said Bednar. “Even if federal law allows you to return, federal employees must always pay rent, grocery store and other essential elements. The Trump administration could use extended leave to withdraw employees from their posts. »»
The White House believes that the only Holdout on the bill to avoid a closure will be the representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky republican, who firmly declared that he would not support the continuous resolution. Trump mired against Massie in an late evening on Monday on Truth Social while trying to rent the Caucus de la Freedom House – of which Massie is a member – to hold the line.
“Thank you to the House Freedom Caucus for simply giving a hard blow to the radical democrats and their desire to take up taxes and close our country!” They hate America and everything it represents, “wrote Trump, before calling a main challenge to Massie, who has prevailed on similar calls in the past. Later in the post, Trump wrote: “Do I have takers ??? Anyway, thank you again to the House Freedom Caucus for your very important vote. We have to buy time to make America again large, bigger than ever. Unite and win !!! “”
If the continuous resolution adopts, this would not withdraw the question of the table entirely, because it would only finance the government until September.
Additional report by Tim Marchman.
Correction: 3/12/2024, 4:35 p.m. HE: This story has been corrected to describe with precision the rules concerning emergency content and federal reductions in force.
