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Trump Administration Threatens To Buck The Law, Not Pay Furloughed Federal Workers

WASHINGTON ― The White House suggested Tuesday that furloughed federal workers won’t necessarily get paid when the government eventually reopens, contrary to a law signed by President Donald Trump in 2019.

The law states that all furloughed workers “shall be paid for the period of the lapse in appropriations,” also known as a government shutdown.

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But an anonymous White House official claimed to Axios that there is some confusion about the statute: “Does this law cover all these furloughed employees automatically? The conventional wisdom is: Yes, it does. Our view is: No, it doesn’t.”

It’s the latest threat by the White House to make the government shutdown politically painful for Democrats, who have insisted that a government funding bill be tied to preventing the expiration of health insurance subsidies at the end of the year. The Trump administration previously threatened to fire federal workers instead of putting them on furlough and has moved to cancel federal spending in Democratic states.

These threats are the brainchild of Russ Vought, the director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, whom Republicans have lionized as some sort of evil genius who knows how to use arcane budget rules to punish Democrats for crossing Trump.

Democrats have said they’re not intimidated by the administration’s threats, however, and some Republicans have said retaliating against Democratic members of Congress doesn’t help end the shutdown. So far, polling suggests most people blame Republicans for the chaos.

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It’s possible the White House’s threat to stiff furloughed federal workers will backfire like their other threats. After initially saying Tuesday there was “new legal analysis” suggesting furloughed workers shouldn’t get paid, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) quickly followed up by saying he thought they should be paid – and that Trump did, too.

“I hope that the furloughed workers receive back pay, of course. We have some extraordinary Americans who serve the federal government,” Johnson said. “I can tell you, the president believes that as well. He doesn’t want people to go without pay.”

Johnson joined virtually all House members in voting for Trump’s bill in 2019, the “Government Employee Fair Treatment Act,” which codified what had been a bipartisan tradition of authorizing back pay for furloughed federal workers after government shutdowns. The text of the law is less than 400 words. It’s not complicated stuff.

Key Democrats on Tuesday promptly rejected the prospect of furloughed federal workers not being entitled to back pay, saying it would be unlawful.

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“The letter of the law is as plain as can be ― federal workers, including furloughed workers, are entitled to their back pay following a shutdown,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, posted on social media. “Another baseless attempt to try and scare & intimidate workers by an administration run by crooks and cowards.”

Her office pointed to official guidance issued just days ago by the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources department, spelling out that furloughed employees must be paid.

“Will employees who are furloughed get paid? Yes,” reads page nine of the OPM document. “After the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.”

The reality is that if the White House were to follow through on its threats of no back pay, it wouldn’t just hurt federal workers in blue states. More than 80% of federal employees work outside the D.C. area, including over 116,000 people based in Texas and more than 86,000 based in Florida, for example.

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Neither the White House nor OMB immediately responded to HuffPost’s requests for comment.

The administration’s new “interpretation” of the 2019 law requiring back pay was first reported by Government Executive, which noticed this week that a “Frequently Asked Questions” page on the Office of Management and Budget’s website had been edited to remove language describing how furloughed and excepted employees alike automatically get paid when the government reopens.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 750,000 federal workers will be furloughed during this shutdown at a daily cost of $400 million.