# Why does a government shutdown mean that Trump can fire people? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [October 2, 2025, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603 "2025-10-02T16:00:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/1 "2025-10-02T16:00:18Z")
I get why he wants to do it, mainly that he’s an asshole, but how does the shutdown facilitate the firings? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/2 "2025-10-02T16:04:50Z")
From [here](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/24/white-house-firings-shutdown-00579909). > The White House budget office is instructing federal agencies to prepare reduction-in-force plans for mass firings during a possible government shutdown, specifically targeting employees who work for programs that are not legally required to continue. So they are jobs that are no longer funded after October 1. My guess is that the goal is to eliminate these jobs before they get funded with a budget agreement. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/3 "2025-10-02T16:10:00Z")
Or, it’s part of Project 2025. Or, a temper-tantrum. We must face the possibility, or even the _likelihood_, that _Trump himself_ does not know. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/4 "2025-10-02T16:24:25Z")
Remember that “reason” and “excuse” are not synonyms. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/5 "2025-10-02T16:43:57Z")
It doesn’t, and he can’t. It’s a political ploy and a way to try to get leverage on Democrats. [https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/administration-plans-for-mass-firings-in-a-shutdown-not-justified-by-law-or](https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/administration-plans-for-mass-firings-in-a-shutdown-not-justified-by-law-or) In fact, it’s unlikely that the HR personnel required to implement such a RIF would be considered “essential workers” that would even be on the job during a shutdown. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/6 "2025-10-02T17:45:25Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > I get why he wants to do it, mainly that he’s an asshole, but how does the shutdown facilitate the firings? Although I concur that with your adjudication of Donald Trump’s character, there is actually a very practical reason why he is trying to take this opportunity to fire federal workers who are not in ‘protected’ roles; [to accelerate the dismantling of the administrative state as outlined in the Project 2025 _Mandate for Leadership_](https://www.forbes.com/sites/solangecharas/2025/04/01/mandate-for-leadership-project-2025-the-crisis-in-workforce-strategy/). By eliminating these jobs during a shutdown under the thesis that there is not funding, they can then dismantle significant portions of these agencies themselves such that even if courts order the firings reversed, there are functionally no jobs or facilities to return to. (This is also why GSA was trying to cancel leases on hundreds of buildings used by federal agencies earlier this year; eliminate the role and you obviate the reason to have someone in it.) I know some people have tried to frame this as the shutdown being executed as a distraction from ‘the Epstein Files’ but in reality this has been planned out long ago, and part of the reason for accelerating attacks on Medicaid and other entitlements is to force a showdown over the budget that would result in exactly this scenario. Democrats are in a lose-lose positions with this shutdown because if they had agreed to support a continuing resolution to prevent it they’ve lost all bargaining power with respect to Medicaid and other cuts, and if they block it (as they are) they facilitate this strategy. What I do not understand that, with the exception of a handful of ‘progressive’ Democrats, they have not been screaming about this at the rooftops for months because that this was the plan all along is obvious to anyone who even skimmed _Mandate for Leadership_ and The Heritage Foundation’s supporting arguments. That people are just sitting still for this is astonishing because it isn’t just ‘liberal’ agencies like USAID or National Institutes of Health that are being cut; it will be agencies like the FDA, the US Forest Service, the National Parks Service, and even elements of the Department of Defense and Department of Energy. It was bad enough the there were the DOGE cuts to NOAA, NASA, or NIH/NSF research funding that actually cut across ideological lines but these will cut that the core of services that help protect wildlands and federal resources, support agriculture, and even make sure that the military is capable of procurement and payroll. It will _gut_ the administrative state, even the parts that they actually need to achieve their own Christian Nationalist agenda, and they’re doing it because they imagine that they can take this all over with ‘private’ support even though we’ve seen how very well that has worked out so far. Some light reading in the shutdown in the context of Project 2025: > **[Trump’s Grand Plan for a Government Shutdown](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/09/trumps-grand-plan-for-a-government-shutdown/684401/)** > > The Trump administration might use a shutdown to finish the job that DOGE started. > **[The Top Goal of Project 2025 Is Still to Come](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/project-2025-top-goal/682142/)** > > The now-famous white paper has proved to be a good road map for what the administration has done so far, and what may yet be on the way. > **[A Guide to Project 2025 - FactCheck.org](https://www.factcheck.org/2024/09/a-guide-to-project-2025/)** > > Project 2025 provides a roadmap for "the next conservative President" to fundamentally change how the federal government works. Former President Donald Trump has claimed he knows nothing about it. Democrats call it "Trump's Project 2025 agenda."... > **[New Book: David A. Graham | Sanford School of Public Policy](https://sanford.duke.edu/story/new-book-david-graham/)** > > David A. Graham, a DeWitt Wallace faculty member, has released an urgent, topic-by-topic guide to Project 2025. It contains everything you need to know about how the seco Stranger ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/7 "2025-10-02T18:53:02Z")
I do want to point out that if Graham was serious about demystifying Project 2025 for the layman, and not policy wonks, he wouldn’t be charging money for his book- he’d release this for free in the interest of the common good. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/8 "2025-10-02T18:55:39Z")
Wouldn’t that then make it a manifesto? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/9 "2025-10-02T18:56:29Z")
Damned if I know. I’m just getting at the fact that if this guy thinks it’s so important and urgent, why’s he trying to make a buck from it? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/10 "2025-10-02T18:59:20Z")
Alternatively, people would say that if it was publishable he wouldn’t have to print it out as a self-published manifesto. No win situation. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/11 "2025-10-02T19:11:40Z")
> [@bump](#): > > do want to point out that if Graham was serious about demystifying Project 2025 for the layman, and not policy wonks, he wouldn’t be charging money for his book- he’d release this for free in the interest of the common good. > [@bump](#): > > Damned if I know. I’m just getting at the fact that if this guy thinks it’s so important and urgent, why’s he trying to make a buck from it? Because this is how he makes a living? For those who have never done it, researching, organizing, and writing a book––especially one that is going to be held up to journalistic standards––takes an extraordinary amount of time and effort. It is basically a full time job, which for someone who doesn’t have the savings or means to take a hiatus or leave their current employment, is basically a second job that also becomes an obsession and often a real albatross as the ‘fun’ part of doing exploratory research is done and the initial notes and draft chapters have to be organized to form a coherent and factually-verified narrative, and then receiving endless rounds of editorial notes and rewrites to get it up to a publication standard. This is why the ‘self-published’ books that you see (even the ones that aren’t AI generated) are pretty uniformly bad and often unreadable. I’m constantly amazed at the people who think that journalism should be both unsubsidized and free to them. Good investigative and explanatory journalism is an arduous process of drilling down to the facts and delivering them with the appropriate context for general readers while excising the extraneous and distracting. It is difficult work done well by a pretty small pool of largely unrecognized people. Most ‘layman’ don’t give a wet shit about Project 2025 even when you explain it to them in explicit detail. “Oh, it’s just more politics. Trump doesn’t really mean it. I just voted for him ‘cause he’s good for business.” If you want a good and ‘free’ précis of Project 2025, here you go: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/gYwqpx6lp_s/maxresdefault.jpg "Trump’s Second Term: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYwqpx6lp_s) > [@Czarcasm](#): > > Alternatively, people would say that if it was publishable he wouldn’t have to print it out as a self-published manifesto. Most people just do not value what you give them for free regardless of how useful or informative it is. The perverse fact is that the more you want someone to listen to you, the more you should charge, _especially_ if you don’t have anything particularly insightful to say. Look at all the chumps going to Tony Robbins seminars for thousands of dollars to get the same level of questionable content you can get for free by watching a few TEDx talks on YouTube. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2025, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/12 "2025-10-03T13:22:54Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Because this is how he makes a living? For those who have never done it, researching, organizing, and writing a book––especially one that is going to be held up to journalistic standards––takes an extraordinary amount of time and effort. I’m well aware. Several friends are academics who have been interviewed on national TV about the books they’ve published. And I’m aware of the rather weird relationship people have between price and value, and specifically how little people value free things. My point was that when someone describes their work as “urgent” and all the other hyperbolic stuff about a looming threat to the nation, and then I get directed to a page to pay for it, it makes me wonder whether all that language about urgency, etc… is just marketing fluff meant to lure me in, or if the author’s actually serious about it. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2025, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-a-government-shutdown-mean-that-trump-can-fire-people/1023603/13 "2025-10-03T15:37:02Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > By eliminating these jobs during a shutdown under the thesis that there is not funding, they can then dismantle significant portions of these agencies themselves such that even if courts order the firings reversed, there are functionally no jobs or facilities to return to. If Congress does not make the funding retroactive but starts funding, let’s say November 1st, is there any legal reason why those workers are entitled to their jobs back or is it a start over from scratch situation?