Donald Trump, who has a reputation for stiffing employees and contractors, resulting from him not knowing the basics of how to run a business, and also, him being atavistically greedy, is, not surprisingly, trying to stiff hundreds of thousands of government employees about to be furloughed during his shutdown.
“It really depends on who you’re talking about. For the most part, we’re going to take care of our people,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, adding, cryptically: “There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”
Translation: he’s going to stiff them.
The Trump Office of Management and Budget is trying to put a new spin on a 2019 federal law that clearly and unequivocally guarantees backpay for federal employees furloughed during a politically motivated government shutdown.
The OMB has put together a draft legal opinion making the claim that backpay would have to be expressly written into the legislation ending the shutdown, which runs counter to both the language of the 2019 law and the clear intent of lawmakers expressed as they were debating and adopting the law.
“This is clearly and unambiguously stated in the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, which Congress passed nearly unanimously in 2019. Speaker Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Thune voted for that bill, and President Trump signed it into law,” said Don Beyer, a Northern Virginia Democrat whose House district, which borders DC, is chock full of tens of thousands of government employees and contractors.
Beyer called the Trump threat to stiff federal employees for what it is “a negotiating tactic, which is despicable.”
The whole shutdown is, indeed, a poor excuse for politics on the part of Trump and the MAGAs in Congress, who could easily decide just to pass their version of a continuing resolution to keep the government open without a single Democratic vote.
They don’t want to, though, because what they want to make happen is, Democrats have to sign on to the draconian cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and the end of subsidies for health insurance that are going to throw tens of millions of Americans out of the healthcare system.
Once Democrats were to agree to a budget with those cuts in place, the thinking goes, that takes away a political talking point for the D side going into the 2026 midterm cycle.
Ain’t that just grand?
“Extreme Republicans and this administration are flailing and throwing attention grabbing headlines out there to distract from the fact that they shut down the government,” said Eugene Vindman, a Democrat who represents a House district in the Northern Virginia exurbs. “They refuse to negotiate with Democrats to reopen the government because they want to rip healthcare away from 15 million Americans. The over 55,000 federal workers in my district, who know the truth that they will be paid, won’t take the bait. They know what this is about.”
To that end, even Mike Johnson, the aforementioned House Speaker, is, in a rare and probably accidental moment of candor, conceding “what this is about.”
“I hope that the furloughed workers receive back pay, of course. We have some extraordinary Americans who serve the federal government. They serve valiantly, and they work hard, and they serve in these various agencies doing really important work,” Johnson told reporters during a press hit on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
That was the mealy-mouthed Johnson straying from his talking points.
He would correct that error later in that same presser.
“It is true that in previous shutdowns, many or most of them have been paid for the time that they were furloughed. But there is new legal analysis, I don’t know the details, I just saw a headline this morning. I’m not read in on it, and I haven’t spoken to the White House about it,” Johnson said.
Dear effing lord – the House Speaker, who has a research staff to help him out with this kind of stuff, on top of, this is his dadgum job, “saw a headline.”
“There are some legal analysts who are saying that that may not be appropriate or necessary in terms of the law requiring that back pay be provided, so I’m sure there will be a lot of discussion about that, but there are legal analysts who think that that is not something government should do,” Johnson said.
“If that is true, that should turn up the urgency and the necessity of the Democrats doing the right thing here, even more pain for more people. So, we’ve got to figure it out,” Johnson said.
ICYMI
AARP poll | Virginia voters oppose Medicaid cuts at heart of shutdown
Memo to Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer | Trump wants to tell jokes? So, tell jokes
Meanwhile, airports across the country are having to close for extended periods because air traffic controllers, not sure that they’re going to be paid, are not showing up for their shifts – and can you blame them?
I don’t know about you, but I’m not volunteering my work week when I’ve got bills to pay.
The ATCs are the folks we’re hearing about; imagine people at all levels of government, among the 750,000 federal workers, having to face that decision.
“I hope that the furloughed workers receive back pay, of course,” Johnson said, adding: “I can tell you, the president believes that as well. You know, I’ve talked about this personally, he doesn’t want people to go without pay.”
Um, well, actually, Mr. Speaker, this president guy is indicating otherwise.
Virginia readers: keep all of this in mind as you think through who to vote for in our 2025 state elections, in which the MAGA Republican nominee, Winsome Earle-Sears, the sitting lieutenant governor, has refused multiple times to weigh in on the shutdown.
“My opponent, Winsome Earle-Sears, has backed President Trump’s job-killing and price-hiking agenda at every turn. Since the very first days of DOGE, I’ve been speaking out against these attacks on Virginia’s economy – and as the next governor of Virginia, I will always work to put our Commonwealth’s economy first,” said Abigail Spanberger, the former Northern Virginia congressman running for governor as the Democratic Party nominee.
“Virginia’s federal workers devote their careers to serving their neighbors, caring for our seniors, supporting our Veterans, and helping keep the American people safe,” Spanberger said. “During government shutdowns, hundreds of thousands of these nonpartisan public servants continue to do their jobs despite not knowing when, or if, they’ll receive their next paycheck.
“President Trump is punishing Virginians for his own refusal to work in good faith to end this shutdown. Withholding backpay would do nothing to strengthen our country, and would be a further attack on Virginians’ livelihoods,” Spanberger said.