Whiplash…Again
SAMHSA Mess
While we await the retrospectives of Trump’s first year in office, the events of this past week with funding at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) serve as a prime example of the chaos we’ve seen over the last 12 months around federal funding freezes and illegal impoundment actions.
It started on Tuesday night, when, with no warning, thousands of grantees received form letters from SAMHSA notifying them of canceled grants, totaling $1.9 billion, nearly a quarter of the entire agency’s budget. Outrage and confusion ensued – these funds had long been supported by Congress and the Administration on a bipartisan basis. Grantees warned of devastating consequences for Americans enrolled in life-saving programs.
As word spread, Congress reacted quickly. More than 100 House Members (including three Republicans) sent a letter opposing the cuts to HHS; we know that other Members personally reached out to the Administration by phone as well. Then, mere hours later on Wednesday night, the Administration reversed itself without explanation, only through anonymous attributions to Administration officials and a form email to grantees saying it was “rescinded,” and “Your award will remain active under its original terms and conditions. Please disregard the prior termination notice and continue program activities as outlined in your award agreement.”
At roughly the same time as this was happening, but apparently unrelated, HHS reversed a 400-person reduction-in-force (RIF) notice to National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health staff.
The SAMHSA mess and NIOSH RIF reversal follow a familiar “ready-fire-aim” pattern from this Administration. Whoever is making the first-order decision to make these cuts against the will of Congress either doesn’t care how Congress will react or wants to test Congress to see what it can get away with and will live with the reversal. Even if everything gets set right again, which isn’t always so easy, grant recipients and federal employees still live with the trauma in the aftermath.
The silver lining from these episodes is that Congress builds muscle memory to defend its priorities, while also drawing a public contrast for each time it chooses not to engage.
Fed Employee Pay During Shutdowns at Issue Again
Congress has now passed six of the 12 appropriations bills and has five more in its sights, with no plan at hand for funding the Department of Homeland Security amidst the chaos unleashed by ICE in the past week.
Given the posture from all sides in Congress to avoid another shutdown, there should be a healthy concern about what amendments could get attached to a “must-pass” government funding bill before the deadline on January 30.
One such provision could be the Shutdown Fairness Act, sponsored by Sen. Ron Johnson, a bill designed to continue paying federal workers during a lapse in annual appropriations. While the spirit has merit, Members must be concerned with the bill’s full consequences – unintended or not.
The most recent filed version of the bill included changes to ensure the bill would pay all federal employees – both those excepted and furloughed – during a shutdown. However, the bill did not include any provisions to block the Administration from pursuing widescale RIFs that could be used to lay off tens of thousands of federal employees during a lapse in appropriations. The True Shutdown Fairness Act, sponsored by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, would include this language. We’ve been told by Congressional staff that Sen. Johnson has thus far refused to include this anti-RIF language in any updated version of the bill.
Even with the RIF language included, though, the bill still has problems. If a bill were to pay employees during a government shutdown, the current Trump Administration may be more emboldened to not reach agreements on appropriations bills it doesn’t like, knowing federal employees would not suffer, even if the beneficiaries of these programs did.
With additional votes on year-long appropriations bills expected before the Jan. 30 funding deadline, it’s likely Congress will see an amendment vote to include the bill in the near future.
This morning, Punchbowl reported that Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Dusty Johnson (R-SD), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), and Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA) will introduce a new version of the bill; we have not seen a copy of the bill yet.
