Washington — The head of the White House Office of Management and Budget said Friday that the Trump administration will be pausing more than $11 billion in Army Corps of Engineers projects, including in four Democratic-led cities, continuing its efforts to increase pressure on Democrats as the government shutdown is poised to extend into another week.
“The Democrat shutdown has drained the Army Corps of Engineers’ ability to manage billions of dollars in projects. The Corps will be immediately pausing over $11 billion in lower-priority projects & considering them for cancellation, including projects in New York, San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore,” Russ Vought, director of the budget office, wrote on X.
He said additional information would come from the Army Corps of Engineers. It’s unclear whether the “lower-priority projects” being paused include others beyond those in New York, San Francisco, Baltimore and Boston, which are all located in states represented by Democrats in the Senate.
Vought has been targeting federal dollars going to projects in Democratic-led cities and states since the early days of the shutdown, which entered its 17th day on Friday and is set to continue into next week. The Trump administration has so far frozen roughly $18 billion for a pair of infrastructure projects in New York City, canceled $8 billion for climate-related efforts in 16 states and withheld $2.1 billion for infrastructure projects in Chicago. All of the states that would benefit from the funds are represented by Democrats in the Senate.
Vought has also overseen a plan to lay off thousands of federal workers amid the ongoing shutdown. Federal agencies began issuing reduction-in-force notices last week, and Vought estimated that the number of government employees impacted could exceed 10,000.
A federal judge, however, temporarily blocked the Trump administration from moving forward with the job cuts, saying during a hearing in San Francisco that they appeared to be politically motivated.
The Trump administration’s moves appear aimed at ramping up the pressure on Democratic lawmakers to support a GOP-backed stopgap funding measure. Democrats have resisted backing the plan, which passed the House last month, and are instead pushing for an extension of enhanced health care tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year. They also want to undo cuts to Medicaid that were part of Mr. Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed earlier this year.
Democrats have so far been unmoved by the pressure by the Trump administration, with a 10th vote in the Senate to resolve the logjam failing on Thursday.
