How is this shutdown different from other shutdowns?

With the government shut down,President Donald Trump and his administration have moved to lay off federal workers, canceled projects in Democratic congressional districts and unilaterally ensured that programshe favors continue operating.

Republican leaders in Congress have argued that’s business as usual under a shutdown.

Asked whether he’s comfortable with the administration using the shutdown to lay offfederal workers, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said Wednesday: “I’m not comfortable with any of this being done, because as I’ve said, I don’t like government shutdowns.”

But, he added: “These are decisions that are being forced on the administration by the Democrats voting repeatedly … to keep the government shut down. Any administration makes decisions in a shutdown - and I’ve been through a lot of them with Democrat presidents as well - they are going to prioritize the things that are important to them.”

The reality is a little more complicated. While the president does have sweeping powers under a government shutdown, budget experts said thispresident may be stretching the legal limits.

Here’s what you need to know.

Congress is in charge of passing spending bills that keep the government funded. The latest funding measure lapsed on Oct. 1. Democrats are demanding Republicans agree to extend subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans, and Republicans refuse to negotiate on the policy while the government is closed.

Programs that are funded through other sources - such as Social Security and Medicare, which are funded by payroll taxes and trust funds, and the U.S. Postal Service, which is funded through fees - continue to operate.

Trump and White House budget director Russell Vought signaled from the start of the shutdown that they would begin laying off federal workers if Democrats did not agree to a funding measure. Trump even posted an AI-generated video of Vought as the grim reaper.

Last week, the administration announced more than 4,000 positions would be eliminated across eight federal agencies. A senior administration official indicated more layoffs would be coming.

“We’ve never had a proposal that, in the midst of a lapse of funding, that the administration would propose a reduction in force,” said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank. “This is unprecedented.”

The White House has suggested that furloughed federal employees aren’t entitled to retroactive pay once the shutdown ends, despite a 2019 law signed by Trump that guarantees it.

“We are going to have to lay some people off if the shutdown continues,” Vice President JD Vance said during a White House briefing earlier this month. “We don’t like that. We don’t necessarily want to do it, but we’re going to do what we have to do to keep the American people’s essential services continuing to run.”

The size of the federal workforce does not impact the government’s ability to pay its bills during a shutdown because most federal employees are not being paid, and their salaries are fully funded by congressional appropriations once the government reopens.

And laying off workers does not make it easier to keep services running.

“In fact it seems contradictory,” Hoagland said. Federal employees are needed “to keep Social Security offices open to process applicants, to keep processing applicants for housing vouchers, to keep offices open to process services to farmers and ranchers” and more.

The answer is complicated. Since Trump took office, courts have generally held that the president has wide discretion to dismiss government workers, as long as the administration adheres to federal personnel law.

In fact, the shutdown could legally make it more difficult. Federal employees that have been laid off can’t prepare to leave their jobs because the human resources staff that usually process layoffs are also furloughed, a federal judge wrote in a ruling pausing the layoffs.

It is “far from normal for an administration to fire line-level civilian employees during a government shutdown as a way to punish the opposing political party,” the judge wrote.

The White House has signaled plans to appeal the decision.

Trump has said the shutdown provides an “unprecedented opportunity” to lay off workers in programs he says Democrats favor and to eliminate projects in Democratic states and congressional districts.

Since the shutdown began, the administration has canceled an estimated $27 billion in funding for projects in Democratic cities and congressional districts.

Democrats in Congress have derided the cuts as an intimidation tactic and say it won’t push them to reopen the government.

The Trump administration used some complex maneuvers to hold up these programs.

On the transportation projects, the administration saidprograms in New York and Chicago relied on diversity-based contracting requirements that the White House claims violate civil rights law. That means they must undergo a mandatory review - but because of the shutdown, the employees who’d conduct that process have been furloughed.

The energy projects, though, are a different story. The Energy Department was already targeting the projects and had made its decision to rescind the funding before the shutdown, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.

Shutdown politics merely guided the timing of the announcements. The White House wanted to give the appearance that Democrats were paying a price for their intransigence. But hundreds of projects in red districts are also imperiled. It just opted to wait to make those official. Wright said more announcements will come in the weeks ahead.

The administration has also moved to keep other programs funded unilaterally.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said the agency would continue paying more than 70,000 law enforcement officers, including in Customs and Border Protection, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the Secret Service and the Transportation Security Administration, but did not indicate where the money for salaries would come from. She previously said funding for the Coast Guard would come from the Republican tax and spending law passed earlier this year, even though the measure does not allow funds to be used for purposes that aren’t outlined in the law. FBI Director Kash Patel said FBI agents would also be paid.

“We got the people that we want paid, paid,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday.

Sen. John Hoeven (R-North Dakota), who leads the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing funding for the Women, Infants and Children food aid program, said the administration coordinated with him to support the hunger program using tariff funds under a 1935 law that directs customs revenue to food programs.

Strictly speaking, experts say, many of Trump’s actions exceed the power of the presidency, but some of the most significant are unlikely to face challenges.

Congress - and Congress alone - controls federal funds, and the spending laws it passes dictate the amount, content and timing of expenditures. That means, with limited exceptions, the president cannot authorize a department to move funds between programs or to make payroll.

Trump invoked his power as commander in chief of the armed forces as part of his order to the Pentagon, but the president’s military command is unrelated to the constitutional provisions about spending power.

Still, his move to pay military service members is likely to stand. Someone with legal standing - a very narrow class - couldtest the Pentagon’s budget maneuvers in court. But paying the troops is politically popular, making it unlikely that a legal challenge will follow.

“If the president finds a way to pay them, let’s do it,” said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris (R-Maryland). “If the Democrats want to challenge it in court they can do that. Good luck on that, with what the American people think about that.”

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