A federal judge in San Francisco has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from proceeding with planned government furloughs, siding with labor unions that argued the move violated federal employment laws during the ongoing government shutdown.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston, a Clinton-era appointee, issued a temporary restraining order preventing the administration from sending out reduction-in-force notices to federal employees in any program or department. The order covers workers represented by government unions as well.
Illston sharply criticized the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), claiming the administration had “taken advantage of the lapse in government spending” and was acting “in excess of authority.” Her decision effectively halts the administration’s attempt to reduce government costs and manage staffing levels during the funding impasse.
In a filing Tuesday night, an OMB official revealed that over 4,000 federal employees had already received notice of potential layoffs. The administration has argued such steps are necessary to ensure fiscal responsibility while Congress remains deadlocked on funding.
The ruling adds another legal obstacle for the White House as it seeks flexibility to navigate the shutdown, which many Republicans have blamed on congressional inaction and political gamesmanship from Democrats.
Blame Chuck Schumer and the democrats for not doing their jobs of creating a useable budget and staying in its limits for the POTUS to sign. This falls directly on Schumer and his minion of Democratic followers.
If we only have an income of say $50K/yr we cannot just say in October I am out of money and I will just fake it and make up worthless paper money to carry me over to the next year, and do it over and over and over again. I would be arrested and put in debitors jail until it was all paid off. Think about this, when was the last time our goverment actually had a surplus of money at the end of the year? I worked for the Feds for 17 years and toward the end of each fiscal year there was a push to spent any remaining balance on anything to blow the money so they could request more the next year. Does that make any since to you?
Amen
The Democrats plan this before Trump took office. They rejected to extend the budget to avoid a government shutdown pre-trump. They refuse to do that so that they knew the first extension would be within his first several weeks of office.
The Democrats just want to keep kicking the can. The USA is almost $40 trillion dollars in debt the debt is growing there is no money
Let’s just face fax kids the checking account is overdrawn and we’re writing bogus checks these days there is no money
Cut the pork government needs to live like a regular person within their means. Cut off any aid to Israel they’re 100% self-sufficient. Cut off any aid to NATO countries that are not paid up to date.
If the federal government’s budget was an ATM machine it would say out of order