With only three days left before the federal government's capital chain breaks, the memo released by the White House Office of Management and Budget late at night on September 24th completely shattered Washington's fluky psychology.
If Congress fails to pass the appropriations bill before September 30, the government will initiate the first "permanent dismissal" process in history, and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will face the fate of "being suspended or unemployed" instead of continuing the four-decade practice of temporary unpaid leave.
This decision to break the history has turned the steady budget negotiations into a political hoax for people's livelihoods.
The memorandum explicitly requires federal agencies to complete a “priority screening” within 48 hours to fully clear projects that lost funding as of October 1 and directly remove all positions that “disagree with the priorities of the president’s administration.”
Russ Water, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, stressed to the department heads in a closed-door meeting that the reduction "has no possibility of re-employment", which is in sharp contrast to the handling of all 800,000 employees returning to work after the 35-day shutdown in 2018.
More dramatically, on the same day that the memorandum was published, Trump suddenly canceled the budget talks scheduled with the Democratic leader, and he declared the Democrats "absurd" through social platforms, but did not mention the other party's core concerns, such as the extension of Obama's medical reform subsidies, and the two-party dialogue window was completely closed.
This game of threat of dismissal is actually the ultimate upgrade of the Trump administration's nearly year-old plan to "slim down" federal agencies.
On January 20, 2025, Trump took office on his first day, signing an executive order to establish a “Ministry of Government Efficiency” led by Elon Musk, which would launch the largest institutional reform in the history of the federal government.
On January 28th, the Personnel Management Office immediately launched the "buyout plan" to attract employees to leave voluntarily with eight months' salary as bait. As of the application deadline of February 6th, 75,000 people had accepted the offer, and their salary and benefits just covered the budget deadline of September 30th.
On February 11th, Trump further signed an executive order to establish the layoff iron rule of "four retreats and one advance", forcing all agencies to connect with the government efficiency department to reduce staff, and retaining only core functional personnel such as military and air traffic control.
The cuts during Musk’s leadership have exposed severe chaos.
On February 24th, the Personnel Administration sent an email to all federal employees according to its request, forcing them to report the progress of the week in the form of "five work points". Failure to reply will be regarded as automatic resignation. This move was accused by the Federal Employees Federation of "obviously illegal" and brewing a lawsuit.
What's even more absurd is that General Services Administration hastily dismissed facility managers in the early stage, resulting in the failure to vacate 131 office space leases in time after their expiration, resulting in high liquidated damages passed on to taxpayers. Now it has to urgently recall the laid-off employees, which is equivalent to letting these people enjoy 7-month paid vacation and then return to work.
Similar "layoff-recall" cycles also occur in the IRS, the Department of Labor and other agencies, highlighting the sloppiness and confusion of plans.
Multiple cuts from February to July have caused a systematic shock.
On January 31st, the FBI took the lead in cleaning up 18 prosecutors involved in the investigation of the "Capitol Hill Riots" and asked them to leave within 3 days; The Environmental Protection Agency announced the ultimate layoff target of 65%. At present, 388 employees have been laid off, and the remaining employees are required to submit "proof of value" reports every week; 1,300 probationary employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were collectively fired in February, accounting for one tenth of the total, but they were ruled as "unlawful dismissal" by the California federal court on September 14th. The judge asked these people to correct their personnel files before November 14th.
As of July, the State Council has closed more than 300 overseas offices and plans to reduce 3,448 diplomats and domestic employees. The Voice of America has reduced its number from 1,400 to only 18 core positions.
The permanent dismissal order escalated local chaos into a systemic crisis.
According to the plan, statutory projects such as social security and medical insurance and personnel with "necessary functions" such as border law enforcement and air traffic control will not be affected, but fields such as international aid and public broadcasting have become the hardest hit areas-previously, related appropriations of US$9 billion have been withdrawn, affecting 1400 local radio stations.
The Department of Justice plans to once again target layoffs of people involved in the follow-up investigation of the "Capitol Hill riots", and the CIA's 1200-person layoffs plan will also be launched simultaneously. The Brookings Institution pointed out that the essence of this targeted reduction is to restructure federal budget priorities through shutdown pressure and transform policy tendencies into personnel changes.
Legal gambling is always accompanied by the process of dismissal.
On May 9th, the California federal court issued a permanent injunction to stop the dismissal, but it was overturned by the ruling of the Federal Supreme Court on July 8th.
A new wave of lawsuits is bursting now: Federal Employee Federation President Everett Kelly has made it clear that he will file a collective lawsuit against the “permanent dismissal order” and question the legitimacy of his circumvention of the Administrative Procedure Act.
Legal experts analyze that the dismissal under the pretext of "budget default" to circumvent the normal assessment procedure, could touch the boundaries of the executive power, the Supreme Court or will intervene again.
For employees, the impact of permanent redundancies is far greater than ever.
While 420,000 employees remained unpaid during the 2019 shutdown, the dismissal would result in a complete loss of public employment and difficulties in getting compensation — the Department of Health and Public Services offered up to $250,000 in departure subsidies in March, and a dismissal of 10,000 in April, such a “preemptive post-cutting” pattern could be replicated in more sectors.
Workplace consultancy data show that 62% of federal employees lack experience in the private sector, and unemployment in public sector-intensive areas such as Washington, D.C., and Maryland could rise by 1.8 percentage points if large-scale dismissals land.
As September 30th approaches, various institutions have entered the countdown to the implementation of the plan.
While promoting the layoffs of 20,000 people, the IRS had to recall some employees who had accepted buyouts to keep the tax reporting system running; the Department of Defense laid off 4000 civilian staff in March, but now it urgently evaluates the combat readiness gap and falls into a "layoff and re-recruit" cycle.
The House and Senate have entered a recess, leaving only a weekend window for negotiations. Both House Speaker Johnson and Senate Democratic Leader Schumer stated that they will "never compromise." Outside speculation that the lockout may last until around Thanksgiving.
Standard Poor’s calculations show that a week-long shutdown will result in a 0.2 percentage point decline in GDP, while the loss of talent caused by permanent redundancies could put the federal government into a long-term efficiency barrier.