Throughout the government shutdown, President Trump has maintained that his administration would “clear out dead wood, waste and fraud.” Because Democrats “started this thing,” he has said, the shutdown presents “an unprecedented opportunity” to eliminate “Democrat-oriented” programs and give his opponents “a taste of their own medicine.”
Trump then posted an image of himself on Truth Social signing a document emblazoned with a statement: “Cry all you want.”
Trump did not specify what qualifies as “Democrat-oriented.” As he must know, the impact of gutting federal agencies will be felt by Americans throughout the country, with the pain falling disproportionately on lower-income individuals and families — millions of whom voted for him.
Shutdown firings have just begun and have already been challenged in court. So far, layoffs affect programs in the Treasury Department, Health and Human Services, and the Department of Education.
Virtually all staff in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services has been terminated. Responsible for distributing $15 billion in federal appropriations under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which requires states to provide special education services to tens of millions of children, the office monitors compliance and informs parents, family members, day care and public-school administrators of their rights and responsibilities.
Almost all 60 staff members working on a college prep program for students from economically disadvantaged families were also permanently laid off.
The Department of Education, which Trump intends to abolish, also oversees Title I funding for schools in low-income neighborhoods, assists low-income and first-generation students attending college, and helps support historically Black colleges and universities.
All 83 members of the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which allocates money to private-public partnerships supporting low-income communities, have been laid off. When Trump signed an executive order in March cutting appropriations for the fund, a bipartisan group of 23 U.S. senators informed him that for every dollar spent by the government, the initiative “generates at least eight more dollars from private-sector investment.” An even larger group of senators endorsed the fund in August, in an appeal to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought.
One hundred employees at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration have been let go. The agency, which had a staff of 900 when Trump took office, now has about half that number. Created by Congress with bipartisan support in 1992, it distributes most of its $7.5 billion budget directly to the states, for mental health and addiction diagnosis and treatment.
On Oct. 10, 1,300 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received termination notices. Within days, 700 of the pink slips were rescinded. Health and Human Services attributed the error to “data discrepancies and processing errors.” Nonetheless, the CDC, once acclaimed as the gold standard for epidemic and chronic disease prevention and treatment, has lost a third of its staff since January.
“If you wanted to weaken America’s public health capacity without saying it outright,” a CDC official maintains, “this is how to do it — remove the people who connect the dots, steady the ship and keep the public informed.”
The shutdown layoffs, it seems clear, continue the dismantling of federal government services begun this Jan. 20.
Signed into law by Trump on July 4, the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act cuts $1 trillion dollars from Medicaid over 10 years — by far the largest reduction in the program’s history. According to the Congressional Budget Office, these reductions and rule changes in the Supplemental Nutrition Program will cause 11.8 million lower-income Americans to lose their health insurance and food supplement eligibility by 2034.
The removal of policies that simplify applications and automatically enroll some people will mean that 1.3 million Americans who qualify for Medicare will not receive Medicaid benefits. Older couples with an annual income of $21,000 could face a $8,340 hike in health insurance premiums. In 2026, a law requiring additional cuts in Medicare if the federal government deficit exceeds a certain threshold may well kick in.
These changes make it likely that emergency room visits by uninsured people will surge, putting additional pressure on hospitals, which must treat them even though they will not be compensated. When the estimated 1.8 million rural Americans are thrown off the Medicaid rolls, hospitals that serve them could close.
In August, the administration withheld a sizeable chunk of the 2025 Congressional appropriation under Title X, a federal government program that dates back to the Nixon administration, dedicated to family planning, pregnancy and related health services. The sequester jeopardizes access to birth control for 800,000 women with low incomes. Fifteen organizations are suing.
At the end of 2025, subsidies for Americans insured under the Affordable Care Act are set to expire. A majority of them live in Republican congressional districts. Three-quarters of households receiving subsidies have an income of $37,650 or less.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, premiums affecting about 22 million people will rise on average by 75 percent. ACA recipients earning 150-200 percent above the poverty line ($64,300 for a family of four) will get a 400 percent increase, from $180 to $905. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 4 million people will be unable to afford health insurance. Are these programs “Democrat-oriented?”
I think there are more important questions to ask. Are the programs on the chopping block good ways to spend our tax dollars? Are they better or worse than “Republican-oriented” priorities? These would apparently include tax cuts that increase the deficit by more than $3 trillion in the next decade, while putting an average of $12,650 in the pockets of people with annual incomes of $217,000 or more. Also “Republican-oriented” is an increase in ICE’s budget by $8.7 billion, to $27.8 billion.
In a democracy, “We the people” should answer these questions, shouldn’t we?
Glenn C. Altschuler is The Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.
