Senior government officials privately warn against firings during shutdown
(Washington Post) Senior federal officials have quietly counseled several agencies against firing employees while the government is shut down - as President Donald Trump has suggested he will - warning that the strategy may violate appropriations law, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.
The officials cautioned that firings - known as RIFs, or reductions in force - could be vulnerable to legal challenges under statutes labor unions cited this week in a lawsuit seeking to block threatened mass layoffs. For example, the Antideficiency Act prohibits the federal government from obligating or expending any money not appropriated by Congress. It also forbids incurring new expenses during a shutdown, when funding has lapsed; some federal government officials have concluded that the prohibition could extend to the kind of severance payments that accompany reductions in force.
Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, whose office oversees apportionment law and has led the administration’s preparation for terminations, have repeatedly said mass dismissals would come during a government shutdown. Plans for such firings have been developed at several agencies, according to two federal officials familiar with the matter who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail internal conversations. Those plans, which have yet to take effect, outline firings for fewer than 16,000 people, a senior White House official said, a smaller RIF than what the White House had previously projected.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/senior-government-officials-privately-warn-222500315.html
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So a Republican president can't do whatever he wants?
Quick! Somebody tell the supreme court!!
