‘Painful’ job cuts to come if impasse drags on, warns Vance
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance has warned that if the government shutdown is not resolved, there could be more workforce disruptions on top of the thousands of jobs already canceled.
“The longer this goes on, the deeper the cuts will be,” Vance told Fox News. “To be clear, some of these cuts will be painful.”
Democrats said Republicans were punishing people by refusing to include health insurance subsidies in the spending bill.
As the shutdown approaches its third week, hundreds of thousands of federal employees have already been furloughed. No congressional vote that could reopen the government is planned.
The dispute began Oct. 1 after Democrats rejected a short-term funding bill. They want the budget to include an expansion of federal subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
The Trump administration announced Friday that seven agencies, including the CDC, have begun laying off more than 4,000 staff.
But a spokesperson for the US health department, which oversees the CDC, told the BBC that some of the CDC layoff notices were sent in error.
Andrew Nixon said CDC staffers have all been “informed that they are not subject to the reduction in force.”
About 700 of the nearly 1,300 CDC employees laid off Friday were reinstated on Saturday, the employee union told CNN.
Essential workers such as federal law enforcement and air traffic controllers must continue to work without pay.
But the Trump administration is making an exception for some essential workers: US soldiers.
This week, Trump directed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to find the funds necessary to keep soldiers paid — and Hegseth delivered.
A Pentagon official told the BBC that the Ministry of Defense will receive around $8bn (£6bn) from “non-essential research development test and evaluation funds” to pay military personnel on October 15 if the funding cut is not resolved.
Sen. Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, toed the Democratic line on Sunday, saying on NBC’s Meet the Press that his party would not back down on its demand that federal health subsidies be reintroduced into the budget sooner rather than later.
Regarding the layoffs, Kelly said Republicans “don’t have to do that, they don’t have to punish people.”
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told NBC’s Meet the Press that he would not vote to extend the subsidies.
In his statement to Fox, Vance blamed the Democrats and said: “This is not a situation we like. [these layoffs] “This isn’t something we’re looking forward to, but the Democrats have dealt us a pretty tough card.”
As lawmakers continue to battle over the budget, more utilities are feeling the impact of the shutdown.
Many Smithsonian museums, research centers and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., closed Sunday after funding to keep them open ran out.
