Democrats and Republicans must agree on a temporary spending bill by the end of Tuesday to avoid a government shutdown. And as of Monday morning, a shutdown — of undetermined duration — looks more likely than not. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries appear determined to play hardball, as restive Democratic voters demand their leaders take a more aggressive posture against an administration they loathe — and which has steamrolled Congress on spending. Democrats are demanding an extension of Obamacare subsidies in exchange for the Senate votes necessary to meet the 60-vote threshold and keep the government open. (The two Democratic leaders are meeting with their Republican counterparts and President Donald Trump on Monday, slightly raising the odds of a last-minute deal.)

The party demanding concessions usually takes the blame for a shutdown and its attendant downsides. But this time around, there’s another factor for Democrats to keep in mind: the Trump administration’s mission to cripple the administrative state. Russell Vought, the powerful head of the Office of Management and Budget, has threatened to institute mass layoffs in the event of a shutdown, to which Democrats have reacted defiantly. But how realistic is the threat? For clarity on that question and the Trump administration’s efforts to lay waste to government in general, I spoke with Don Kettl, a professor emeritus and former dean at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, who is an expert on the federal bureaucracy.

There was almost a government shutdown back in March. One of the reasons Democrats gave for not going down that path was that the Trump administration could have used such a shutdown to wreak even more chaos on the federal government. This time, Democrats are, as of now, barreling forward and basically saying “Screw you. This is a bluff.” To what extent do you think they’re playing with fire? 
I think this is not a bluff. It’s entirely possible that the Republicans wouldn’t mind at all taking the short-term hit of whatever blowback there may be from a government shutdown in exchange for gaining more power over both the budget and the personnel system. They’ve been campaigning across the board for the power to be able to fire anybody they want to fire, from Federal Reserve Board members to people working in local social-security offices. There is a large group of people on the right, many of whom work inside the administration, who believe that the president has that power — that all federal employees ultimately are at will, and they think they can trace it back to the time of the founding. So they want to try to establish that policy and use this as a precedent, and then combine that with the power of impoundment. So I think they would not be very disappointed if it turns........

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