The shutdown was supposed to be about budgets. Instead, it has become a bonfire of the civil service, and the match is being struck in Russ Vought’s hand. On the first day of the shutdown, he told House Republicans that mass firings would begin “in a day or two.” This wasn’t speculation. He described a sequence: agencies compiling RIF packages immediately, the first wave of pink slips hitting “non-essential” units—including fee-funded offices that technically still had money—and broader cuts rolling through probationary workers and policy jobs reclassified under the resurrected Schedule F. The legal cover? January’s executive order reinstating Schedule F, July’s Supreme Court ruling lifting an injunction on mass layoffs, and the Antideficiency Act’s shutdown authorities. The political cover? Calling it “right-sizing.” The reality? A purge.
But it doesn’t stop with workers. Vought is also wielding the axe over Democratic states’ infrastructure and climate investments. He bragged publicly that nearly $8 billion in “Green New Scam” projects are being canceled, targeting clean energy initiatives in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. The Department of Energy will provide the hit list. Then, with open glee, he announced that roughly $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects—including the Hudson Tunnel Project and the Second Avenue Subway—are being “put on hold” for allegedly flowing funds through unconstitutional DEI principles. The Department of Transportation will provide the receipts. What’s clear is that this is punishment dressed up as fiscal discipline. Democrats are the target.
The Shutdown Becomes a Weapon
Shutdowns used to be theater. This one is theater with body counts. Hundreds of thousands are furloughed without pay, and tens of thousands are now staring at the prospect of permanent termination within days. The RIF machinery sorts who gets cut by tenure, veteran status, performance reviews—a mechanical cruelty that pretends to be neutral while agencies are told which programs to prioritize for elimination. Offices tied to Democratic priorities—grants, research, environmental enforcement—are disproportionately in the crosshairs. It isn’t budget triage. It’s a partisan weapon.
From Furlough to Firing
Vought’s sequencing is clinical:
- Assemble the lists: Every agency must rank staff and prepare “packages” by the end of the week.
- Start the bleeding: Fee-funded and “non-essential” units go first, even if solvent.
- Expand the waves: Probationary staff and Schedule F reclassifications lose jobs en masse.
- Lock it in: Permanent terminations signed under the cover of shutdown law, making furloughs irreversible.
It’s all happening at speed. What’s called a shutdown is really a transformation of the workforce—a one-two punch of ideological purges and fiscal starvation.
The Green and the Concrete
Then come the projects. While agencies bleed, infrastructure dollars evaporate. Nearly $8 billion in climate funding, already approved, suddenly vanishes. It’s not just policy. It’s a slap at Democratic governors who dared to align with clean energy. These are research labs in Massachusetts, transmission upgrades in California, solar investments in New Mexico—all now labeled wasteful “Green New Scam” spending. The cancellation isn’t fiscal caution. It’s revenge.
And in New York? Vought proudly declares $18 billion worth of projects paused: the Hudson Tunnel, the Second Avenue Subway, the arteries of an already overstressed city. The justification? DEI. The subtext? Punish the bluest of blue strongholds while handing Republicans a victory lap about cutting woke infrastructure. For a city that anchors the national economy, the cuts aren’t belt-tightening—they’re sabotage.
The Bureaucratic Cover
How do you make mass firings and cancellations look legal? You wave the following flags:
- Schedule F strips protections from policy roles. Loyalty tests become job descriptions.
- RIF rules let you claim “neutrality” while stacking the order of execution.
- The Antideficiency Act allows you to keep “necessary” shutdown work going—conveniently defining necessary as “reassigning or firing employees.”
- The Supreme Court’s July order dissolved injunctions against mass layoffs, giving OMB the green light to cut even while unfunded.
Together, these mechanisms create a legal façade. Behind it, the executive branch seizes Congress’s purse strings and uses them as a whip.
Fallout on the Ground
- Hundreds of thousands unpaid after furlough.
- Tens of thousands fired outright within days.
- Research suspended, grants frozen, benefits delayed.
- Contractors cut loose, supply chains disrupted.
- States and governors blindsided as federal partnerships collapse midstream.
And when appropriations eventually resume? The workers and projects may not exist to restart. The cuts are permanent.
Why Negotiate at All?
What’s the point of bargaining with an administration that uses the Office of Management and Budget as a guillotine? Congress can haggle over toplines and continuing resolutions, but the White House is already doing the work of strangling programs unilaterally. That’s not negotiation—it’s blackmail.
And it’s not even subtle. Vought’s boasts about killing climate investments and pausing tunnels are not budget notes. They’re trophies. He names the states. He names the projects. He frames them as ideological crimes. This isn’t governance. It’s punishment by spreadsheet.
The Illusion of Neutrality
The administration insists this is “right-sizing.” But notice who’s being right-sized:
- Democratic districts with climate labs, grant offices, and urban transit projects.
- Programs tied to social equity and environmental enforcement.
- Infrastructure in cities that vote blue.
If it were neutral, the axe would fall evenly. Instead, it cuts precisely where it hurts Democrats most, leaving red priorities untouched. Neutrality is the mask. Partisan purge is the substance.
Risks and Reactions
- Unions rush to court, claiming retaliation, due process violations, discrimination.
- Agency chiefs warn of mission failure.
- Governors scream about collapsing projects and lost reimbursements.
- Civil-service experts say the legal choke points—whistleblower protection, veteran preference, statutory authority—will bog this down.
- Contractors signal cascading layoffs as projects halt.
- Political analysts warn of blowback. Cut too much capacity, and you cripple your own government when it needs to reopen.
But the gamble is this: that courts will move too slowly, unions will be too weak, and Democrats too divided to stop it. By then, the firings will be irreversible.
The Real Shutdown
This isn’t a budget impasse. It’s a reengineering of the state. By exploiting the shutdown, the White House sidesteps Congress, punishes Democratic states, and sets a precedent: every lapse is an opportunity to permanently shrink government. Furloughs become firings, appropriations become irrelevant, negotiations become theater.
The point is not compromise. The point is control. And Democrats who still think they’re bargaining over line items are missing that they’re already being gutted in real time.
What’s the point of negotiating with fascists who write their cuts into the machinery of the shutdown itself? There isn’t one. The only fight worth having is the one that exposes the purge for what it is—a partisan execution carried out with bureaucratic knives.
And the longer Democrats pretend it’s just another shutdown, the more agencies, projects, and workers will be buried under the rubble of “right-sizing.”