The government shutdown is expected to cost taxpayers $400 million a day to pay furloughed federal employees, according to Congressional Budget Office data. (Mehmet Eser/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The U.S. government has been in the midst of an ongoing shutdown since Oct. 1, when Senate lawmakers failed to pass funding legislation for 2026. An estimated 750,000 federal employees were furloughed and will be compensated with back pay once the shutdown ends, as stipulated in a 2019 law.
As the shutdown loomed at the end of September, Ernst published Congressional Budget Office data showing the shutdown is expected to cost taxpayers $400 million a day, with the Iowa senator railing against the hefty price tag "to pay 750,000 non-essential bureaucrats NOT to work."
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President Donald Trump warned the administration could make "irreversible" changes to the federal workforce in the lead-up to the shutdown. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
White House spokesman Kush Desai slammed Democrats as "not serious people" when asked about the Congressional Budget Office data earlier in October.
"Democrats are burning $400 million a day to pay federal workers not to work because they want to spend $200 billion on free health care for illegal aliens," he told Fox News Digital. "These are not serious people."
President Donald Trump warned the administration could make "irreversible" changes to the federal workforce in the lead-up to the shutdown, most notably through a new wave of fresh layoffs. The president repeatedly said that he and his allies did not want the government to shut down, but that it opened the door for some "good" that could come from it as he looks to further slim down the size of the government and make it more efficient.
The White House announced on Friday that reduction in force notices, better known as RIFs, had been issued across agencies.
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"The RIFs have begun," White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought wrote on X Friday.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/shutdown-faces-taxpayer-reckoning-lawmaker-works-expose-true-cost-democrats-political-stunt