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Virginia Democrats warn against Trump’s federal worker buyout as questions around funding freeze continue

Delegates Josh Thomas, David Bulova and Joshua Cole stand behind House Speaker Don Scott as they criticizes Trump's now-dead federal funding freeze.
Brad Kutner
/
Radio IQ
Delegates Josh Thomas, David Bulova and Joshua Cole stand behind House Speaker Don Scott as they criticizes Trump's now-dead federal funding freeze.

A leaked copy of a buyout offer to federal workers shows they have a choice: leave by the end of the week with months of severance or potentially be fired without benefits later on.

Virginia lawmakers are responding to the news, some with a warning.

“Don't be fooled. He’s tricked hundreds of people with that offer,” Senator Tim Kaine said Tuesday evening, hours after a “deferred resignation” letter was sent to federal employees offering them the chance to get seven months of pay without working or face termination at a future date.

Kaine pointed to reports of President Donald Trump’s checkered history of paying for work he was promised as reasoning to say no to the deal.

And Virginia House Speaker Don Scott agreed.

“I think they’re playing games, he and Elon Musk, or whatever. They think it's one of their new projects, they got a project manager working on it,” Scott said, noting the missive bared resemblance to the letter X owner Musk sent to employees shortly after acquiring the social media site.

“This is people’s lives they’re dealing with,” the Speaker added.

But Governor Glenn Youngkin said Trump was doing what he promised to do: clean up federal waste.

And he reiterated hundreds of thousands of jobs are currently open in the commonwealth if federal workers wanted to find new employment.

“’I’m first of all empathetic to the concerns that that causes. I also want to reassure people we have an incredibly strong economy,” Youngkin told the press Wednesday morning. There’s estimated to be over 140,000 federal employees in Virginia.

“We need you; we need talented people to take the great jobs that are available all over the commonwealth,” he added.

Scott also expressed concerns about benefit cuts that were linked to Trump’s federal funding freeze executive order. The order came from the White House Office of Budget Management. Its earliest form was called vague and wide-reaching. The order was later followed up with additional language to clarify what it would and would not impact.

The memo was rescinded Wednesday afternoon, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the orders "on federal funding remain in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented. A leaked memo from the Youngkin administration blamed limited information from the White House Office of Budget Management and “misinformation” for “scaremongering” among federal employees and beneficiaries.

Still, the governor compared Trump’s actions to those he took early in his term, reviewing state contracts to decide what was and wasn’t working.

“He’s doing what he told people he’d do, and received a massive vote of confidence to do,” Youngkin said. “He’s, once again establishing fiscal responsibility”

While the order was still active Wednesday morning, Scott asked Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares to join a lawsuit filed Tuesday and led by a coalition of dozens of state Attorneys General.

“When they were fighting against COVID shots they were quick to join lawsuits, left and right,” Scott said. “File a lawsuit to protect our Commonwealth of Virginia.”

The coalition's filing convinced a federal judge to temporarily block the order Tuesday night.

Questions Wednesday asking whether Miyares office would join the coalition were not returned.

But Charlottesville Senator Creigh Deeds doesn’t think Miyares would have joined if given the chance.

“The problem is they represent President Trump, they don’t represent the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia,” Deeds told Radio IQ.

This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.

Brad Kutner is Radio IQ's reporter in Richmond.