‘It’ll Get Much Higher’: Trump’s Budget Chief Previews Future Layoffs

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought isn’t going to let the government shutdown slow his mission of cutting government waste, he said on “The Charlie Kirk Show” podcast on Wednesday.

A government shutdown “slows down the administration, so the administration can’t do as much of what it was doing on behalf of the American people,” he explained.

“We, to the best of our abilities, want to minimize that, that slowdown in momentum,” Vought said. “And I think the president is kind of doing that himself with solving Middle East peace and in all the manner of things that he spends his time in. But one of the things we want to do is, if there are policy opportunities to downsize the scope of the federal government, we want to use those opportunities.”

Vought will do everything he can to take advantage of opportunities to downsize the government, he said, adding that Americans should expect the number of people laid off in government shutdown reductions in force will increase. About 4,000 federal workers have been laid off so far.

“I think it’ll get much higher,” he said.

“We’re going to keep those RIFs rolling throughout this shutdown,” he continued. “We think it’s important to stay on offense for the American taxpayer.”

Republicans have proposed keeping spending at current levels via a clean, stopgap continuing resolution, and Democrats have countered with $1.5 trillion in demands, the OMB chief said. Democrats want to repeal President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” expand the Biden administration’s health care policies, and repeal rescissions cutting funding to PBS, NPR, and USAID.

“The magnitude of their demands is madness,” Vought said, “and so, we’re trying to get that out to the American people.”

The post ‘It’ll Get Much Higher’: Trump’s Budget Chief Previews Future Layoffs appeared first on The Daily Signal.