https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/10/democrats-government-shutdown-column-00203440
The Shutdown Fight That Could Play Right Into Trump’s Hands
There isn’t one neat trick to defeating Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s war on the federal government.
By RACHAEL BADE
02/10/2025 05:35 PM EST
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The legal basis for the modern federal shutdown
traces back to a 1980 memorandum penned for President Jimmy Carter by then-Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti. It spelled out his interpretation of what a lapse in funding would mean for a federal agency: No spending whatsoever “except as necessary to bring about the orderly termination of an agency’s functions.” He later amended that to exempt functions connected to “the safety of human life or the protection of property.”
In other words, a government bureaucrat created the shutdown, and a government bureaucrat could destroy it. Trump’s new attorney general, Pam Bondi, might not even need to rescind Civiletti’s guidance: The White House Office of Management and Budget exercises huge influence in determining what activities are essential under the memo and which aren’t.
And if we know anything about Trump’s newly confirmed OMB director, Russ Vought, it’s that he has little regard for the niceties of bureaucratic precedent. It’s not hard to imagine him working with Trump and even Musk to designate a much broader swath of favored agencies to continue operating while other, disfavored corners of government are shut down and their workers sent home.
A DOGE shutdown, in other words, could hand carte blanche to Musk, Vought & Co. to remake the federal government in the very same ways that Democrats want to fight against. In some ways, it could be even easier, in fact — a veritable dream for them.
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