Chicago – September 25, 2025
The White House budget office is telling federal agencies to prepare plans for mass firings in the event of a government shutdown, with instructions to target programs they are not legally required to continue.
The directive, outlined in an Office of Management and Budget memo to agencies and obtained by CNN, represents a sharp break from the government’s handling of past shutdown scenarios — and an escalation by the Trump administration amid a standoff with congressional Democrats over federal funding.
In the memo, OMB directs agencies to identify programs whose funds will lapse if Congress fails to meet the September 30 funding deadline and that have no alternative source of funding. Those programs should then be targeted for sweeping reductions in force that could permanently eliminate jobs that are deemed “not consistent” with President Donald Trump’s priorities.
“We remain hopeful that Democrats in Congress will not trigger a shutdown and the steps outlined above will not be necessary,” OMB wrote in the memo.
An OMB spokesperson declined to comment.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the memo “an attempt at intimidation.”
“Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one—not to govern, but to scare,” Schumer said in a statement Wednesday evening. “This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government. These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”
The threat of mass job losses across the government is likely to further intensify the partisan funding showdown over the next week, where Democrats have demanded a series of concessions in exchange for keeping the government open into November. Most notably, Democrats are insisting on an extension of the enhanced federal subsidies for Affordable Care Act coverage, which are set to lapse at year’s end.
