As Washington adapts to the realities of its latest government showdown, the memo circulated last week by OMB Director Russ Vought offers a rare glimpse of clarity in the chaos. Vought’s instruction to federal agency heads to prepare reduction-in-force (RIF) plans in the event of a shutdown signals a bold – and long overdue – move to realign the federal workforce with the priorities of the Trump administration, which, after all, was put in place as the choice of the people. Rather than passively treat a shutdown as an interruption, the President should seize it as an opportunity to recalibrate which parts of government deserve to endure, and which should be scaled back or eliminated entirely.

In previous lapses in appropriations, the standard playbook has been furloughs: agencies halt nonessential work, employees temporarily see pay suspended and resume once funding is restored. The Vought memo explicitly goes further. It directs agencies to target programs whose funding will lapse, have no alternative funding source, and are not consistent with the President’s priorities, and to prepare RIF notices in addition to standard furlough protocols.

This is not mere brinkmanship. It is a recognition that the federal behemoth has swelled for decades, often carrying on activity for political, not constitutional, reasons. A government shutdown offers a rare forcing mechanism. Congress either acts or it concedes that not all programs are equally deserving of survival. By demanding that agencies draw up RIF plans, Vought is imposing........

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