After triggering a government shutdown to strip Americans of extended tax credits under the Affordable Care Act, Donald Trump‘s administration is now targeting the very federal workers caught in the crossfire.
In a move that reeks of political blackmail, Trump’s White House is reportedly preparing to deny back pay to hundreds of thousands of federal workers forced to go off work due to the government shutdown. According to a draft memo details obtained by Axios, the administration believes withholding pay could pressure Senate Democrats into backing the Republicans’ “clean” stopgap spending bill and ending the shutdown.
The move is not simply an abuse of power, but also shamelessly hypocritical on Trump’s side. He himself signed the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act (GEFTA) in 2019, guaranteeing back pay to all federal employees affected by government shutdowns. The legislation was passed after the 35-day shutdown he orchestrated during his first term. Now, with characteristic arrogance, Trump claims the very law he once signed is “deficient,” arguing it was amended nine days after signing.
If the memo is enforced, the move would strip more than 750,000 federal workers of their rightfully earned income. These are workers who have no role in Washington’s political games, but will bear the brunt of them. Many of these employees are already living paycheck to paycheck, and a delayed or denied salary could mean missed rent, medical bills, and childcare costs.
But the cruelty doesn’t stop there. Reports also suggest the administration is freezing over $28 billion in infrastructure and energy projects, most of them in Democratic-led cities like New York. This serves as enough evidence to expose Trump’s sabotaging strategy as he uses ordinary Americans as bargaining chips to win his political battles.
The White House memo is nothing but a weaponization of governance to punish political opposition, stenching of Trump’s ugly hypocrisy. While he’s getting the backlash he deserves on social media, it has never stopped him from playing his dirty politics.
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