Standoff boosts case for federal limits
WASHINGTON » President Donald Trump has cast the shuttering of federal agencies as a standoff over his plan to build a wall on the southern border. But for many White House aides and allies, the partial shutdown is advancing another long-standing priority — constraining the government.
Prominent advisers to the president have forged their political careers in relentless pursuit of a lean federal budget and a reinedin bureaucracy. As a result, they have shown a high tolerance for keeping large swaths of the government dark, services offline and 800,000 federal workers without pay, with the shutdown having entered an unprecedented fourth week.
Those encouraging a hard line include acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and acting White House budget director Russell Vought, as well as leaders of the House Freedom Caucus, whose members have taken on an influential role with the White House.
Mulvaney and Vought have taken steps to blunt some of the shutdown’s most unpopular effects, calling back furloughed employees to process tax refunds, collect trash in national parks and ensure that food stamps will continue to be issued.
But Mulvaney is not rattled by the fallout and instead has been focused on protecting Trump from criticism, according to two administration officials who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Mulvaney did momentarily urge compromise on funding for a wall in a meeting on Jan. 4, the officials said. But Trump quickly shot down his suggestion, and Mulvaney has since been in step with Trump.
Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Jim Jordan, ROhio — leaders of the Freedom Caucus and the president’s top allies in the House — have urged Trump to stay the course. They have built national profiles with calls to slash federal spending — not as much on strengthening border security.
The shutdown is “a means to an end for something they have long pursued, which is limiting the size and scope and role of government,” former House GOP staffer Kurt Bardella said of the conservative Freedom Caucus. Bardella became a Democrat in 2017.
“These are small-government guys, not wall guys,” one former White House official said of Meadows and Jordan.
Conservatives have for decades questioned the size and effectiveness of the federal bureaucracy. The shutdown has in some ways underscored their view that government can function with fewer employees.