It’s now day 21 of the Schumer shutdown with no sign of the two sides reaching an agreement. As the situation drags on, the White House is looking for ways to ensure that critical programs are still funded and operational. One way is to cut the jobs and agencies that are unnecessary government bloat.
Last Friday, Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought announced that the anticipated reductions in force, or RIFs, had begun.
Each day, reports come out of more jobs that are part of the RIFs, so what we know so far is only part of the picture.
The department hardest hit by the layoffs is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), with nearly 1,300 positions being permanently cut since last Friday. During the Biden Administration, the IRS added nearly 30,000 agents. The Trump Administration has been reducing those numbers since early this year, and this latest round of cuts is a continuation of that. As the tax-collecting arm of the federal government, the IRS is possibly the most hated of all the federal agencies. It is viewed (justifiably, given recent revelations) as overly intrusive and has been used to unfairly target political opponents (especially conservative groups).
Another agency heavily affected by the RIFs is Health and Human Services with nearly 1,200 positions on the cutting board. One office that appears to have been almost entirely eliminated is the Office of Population Affairs (OPA), an agency that has long been a target for conservatives. In 2023, Congresswoman Mary Miller (R-Illinois) offered an amendment to an HHS appropriation bill to eliminate funding to the office. It failed to pass, but 204 Republicans voted in favor of it. OPA is responsible for distributing Title X family-planning grants, a whopping 36% of which go to Planned Parenthood. OPA also manages donations for frozen embryo banks and funds sex-education for LGBTQ youth through its teen pregnancy prevention program. A former Biden administration official claimed that “These are the programs that centered on reproductive and queer health, and now they’re gone.” OPA has long operated contrary to the interests of families and will not be missed.
Many of the 466 jobs eliminated from the Department of Education are those related to special education. While opponents of the cuts argue that this will hamper the ability to help students with disabilities, the opposite is true. By further cutting the education jobs in Washington, states will have greater control over how to distribute funds, making it more likely that students who need government resources will actually get them. It is money taken from the bureaucracy to the benefit of actual students.
The RIFs have so far included 4,200 executive branch jobs with further cuts at the Departments of Housing and Uban Development, Commerce, Homeland Security, and the Environmental Protection Agency. In an interview earlier this week, Vought said he expects that number to be closer to 10,000 before the shutdown ends. Typically, it is famously difficult to eliminate government jobs, a contributing factor to the ever-increasing size of government. Vought, with the blessing of President Trump, is using the unfortunate situation of a shutdown to make the government work better for the American people.
Of course, these job cuts are not going unchallenged. On October 15, a U.S. district judge in California paused the layoffs, claiming that they appear to be unlawful and politically motivated. It is unclear how many of these job cuts are permanent and how many will be reinstalled once the shutdown ends. However, every American knows that the government is inefficient and that taxpayer dollars fund unnecessary and wasteful projects. In November, voters elected President Trump to reduce the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy, and the RIFs are fully aligned with that mission.
If the Democrats want the RIFs to end, the best way to do that is to vote to reopen the government. They’ve so far declined to do that 11 times, but there’s always tomorrow.
