Q&A of the Day – How Much of the Federal Government is Currently Shutdown?

As of today, the partial shutdown—now in its fifth day—continues to furlough approximately 34% of the civilian federal workforce, or about 750,000 employees out of a total of roughly 2.2 million (excluding active-duty military).

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Your questions Brian's answers. It's time for today's Q and
A of today This is the Brian Mud Show and
today's Q and A how much of the federal government
is currently shutdown, which also will give you an idea
of how much of the government can be shut down
without you having any clue that there's.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
A partial government shutdown unless people tell you about it.
This is brought to you by Melissa and Ashes check
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(00:43):
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Today's notice this at Brian Mud Radio. Why hasn't Trump
used the shutdown to downsize the government yet? Also? How
do current furloughs compared to previous shutdowns? Good questions here

(01:04):
and I'm going to dive in first. Here's an update
as to where we stand with the partial government shutdown,
Fox's Granol Scott.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on CBS Faced the Nation
said active negotiation to end the shutdown is key, and
to him, when it comes down to it, the only
way this will ultimately be solved is if five people
sit together in a room and solve it. The five
he means the party leaders in both congressional chambers and
the president, but Senate Majority Leader John fun on Fox's

(01:33):
Sunday Morning Future said there's not much to discuss. Give
him the opportunity a clean, non partisan short term funding
resolution that continues government funding for the next seven weeks,
and on four occasions now they voted against it. Senator
Foon says, once the government has reopened, then other discussions
can happen, all.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Right, So nothing new. Come it out of the weekend
now and dive it into the two questions here. Why
is in Trump used to shut down to downsize the government? Also?
How does the size of this one compared to two
previous My answer to the first question is your guess
is as good as mine, but I do have some

(02:15):
thoughts on this. While President Trump has repeatedly suggested that
a partial government shut down would effectively allow him to
expedite the downsizing of the federal government that Doge has
been working on, and as I point out last Thursday,
he's still working on. Don't you still exist? You just
don't hear about Elon and big balls being involved, as
all gets still every time. So anyway, there's a reasonable

(02:41):
chance that the president's in action is motivated or at
least rhetorically by political posturing. So both parties aggressively seek
to gain the upper hand in public perception during a
government shutdown, and it may be the case that the
President is of the mindset the permanent layoffs during the
partial shutdown would be perceived by many Americans is like

(03:02):
an intentional plan by Republicans, which would make it easy
for Democrats and their allies and most news media just
to paint the GOP as the party to blame for
orchestrating a partial shutdown, which, regardless of your political preferences,
isn't the case. You know, when you hear that the
House pass a clean so to speak, continuing resolution, they did,
meaning Republicans are simply seeking to keep the status quo

(03:26):
based on previously signed laws in the place. It's Democrats
that are seeking to leverage their Senate filibuster into changing
laws that they don't like, to bring back covid AT
era policy on ACA subsidies and Medicaid work requirements. And
while many of us seeking a smaller federal government are
not concerned with the perceived politics of this, we know

(03:46):
next year's midterm elections are a top concern of the
Trump administration, as Democrat control of Congress would not only
in Trump's legislative agenda first final two years as president,
but also likely lead to just an endlest cycle of
intempted impeachments and all that kind of nonsense. So this
dynamic is likely why action hasn't been taken yet. And
I say yet, because there is one noteworthy and interesting

(04:09):
dynamic to this partial shutdown, how deep it's gone. So
let me dive in in addressing part of your second
question here and i'll tie together with the first. As
the previously have covered, during the typical government shutdown, an
average of fifteen percent of the federal government is shut
down on the low end, with an average of twenty

(04:30):
percent being offline on the high end. It's why it's
a massive mischaracterization to ever suggest that the government is
just shut down. Most of it isn't. But here's what's
interesting about this one. It actually is the most aggressive
partial government shut down today, and I'll explain. As of today,
the partial government shutdown after five days, continues to furlough

(04:55):
approximately thirty four percent of the civilian work, or about
seven hundred and fifty thousand employees out of roughly two
point two million, excluding active duty military. So this estimate
from the Congressional Budget Office reflects the agency's contingency plans.
Remember Trump said, hey, all department heads, give me you

(05:17):
riff plans here, and so he went deep with them
when they were presented to him. He went deep. So
the Office of Personnel Management accounts for the variations in
daily furloughs, which can can rise if this continues. To
give you an idea of where we stand. By major agencies.

(05:41):
At the Department of Homeland Security, only five percent of
those employees have been furloughed. At the FAA, the Federal
Aviation Administration, it's quarter right at a quarter the Executive
Office of the President. You know, we were talking to
our White Holl's correspondent, John Decker and Friday, he said, yeah,
you know, a lot of the president staff are are
around here. It's true. Thirty two percent, nearly a third

(06:03):
of the President's staff is fur load. Department of Health
and Human Services forty one percent for load, The Department
of Defense almost have forty five percent furload, all of
those civilians Team Rubio, the State Department sixty two percent
furlad the Department of Education one we know the President

(06:26):
is aiming to get rid of. Eighty seven percent of
those employees are offline. The EPA another one of the
President's not a big fan of Environmental Protection Agency eighty
nine percent furload. And then you got the IRS. Joel,
what percentage of the IRS do you think is now
working today?

Speaker 1 (06:44):
One hundred percent?

Speaker 2 (06:45):
I hope you're right. Wow, yeah, one hundred percent of
the IRS for a load. So what we've seen is
that the Trump administration's contingency plans emphasize minimizing furloughs for
the essential functions like DHS, but include really large scale
reductions and force for non priorities. Of his three agencies

(07:08):
he's targeted to cut severely or eliminate. Those are where
you see the biggest furloughs. Right now. So the net
effect of all this is that the largest partial government
shut down in American history by way of furload employees
is happening, and also on a percentage basis, and yet
you still aren't probably noticing this at any point. But anyway,
while perusing CBO data about all of this, there was

(07:31):
an interesting note that popped up regarding the furlough notices,
and it's this. It states that furloughs could transition into
permanent layoffs after a sixty day notice period. In other words,
fur load employees, every one of them, are on notice
right now that they may not necessarily be retained going forward.
The Office of Management and Budgets Guide for furload Employees.

(07:53):
I've read this over the weekend, really great read, by ways,
sixty five pages in total. Notably on page fifty there's
an entire section explaining that there may be resulting reductions
in force that are implemented during the shutdown and explaining
the difference between reductions and force and furloughs. Now, the

(08:15):
Warrant Act requires sixty day notifications for laos at the
federal government level, so it would seem as though the
clock began ticking last week So in other words, the
point is this, whether President Trump comes out and says
X number of employees will be fired as part of
a permanent reduction in force or not has no bearing currently.
It wouldn't accomplish anything the notice to all furloughed employees

(08:38):
to begin that sixty day clock. It's already underway, so
effectively Trump has done everything he can do at this stage.
Allows the president to kind of balance the politics of
this along with what may be his longer term strategy. Now,
of course, I don't know if the President is going
to push through any riffs as a result of this.
Only that is administration has been historically aggressive with the

(09:00):
number and percentage of fur load federal employees, and that
the notice about the rose has been given to literally
every furload employee. So we'll have to wait and see
what the end result will be. But I think that's
all pretty instructive.