The White House should maintain a detailed list of the roughly 40 percent of federal employees who are furloughed during a shutdown, a Republican lawmaker proposed in a new bill, saying increasing transparency surrounding those workers would help reduce the “bloated bureaucracy.”
The Essential Act (H.R. 5091), introduced by Rep. Ted Budd, R-N.C., would require the Office of Management and Budget to maintain a database of every employee not excepted or exempted during a shutdown. The list would include the employees’ names, salaries and job descriptions, information that each agency would be required to submit to OMB.