Trump Administration Says It’ll Run Shutdown Differently, Keep Parks Open
- Approach decried as political, designed to blunt public impact
- Budget director says Obama sought to ‘weaponize’ last shutdown
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U.S. government offices may be locked and most federal employees sent home, but the Trump administration has a plan to blunt the impact of a shutdown: It will leave many national parks open, keep issuing passports for a while and try to avoid other inconveniences of past standoffs.
The strategy is part of a Trump administration effort to minimize the public pain of a government shutdown -- while also minimizing the political leverage of Democrats, who have used past shutdowns to their advantage by shuttering services and blaming Republicans.