Exactly what I have been predicting for Trump's plan, via TPM

[Grasswire2]

[link:https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/senior-trump-official-anonymous-daily-caller-op-ed-shutdown-federal-workers|

An unnamed “senior official in the Trump administration” wrote in an anonymous Daily Caller op-ed Monday that the record-breaking 24-day partial government shutdown “is an opportunity to strip wasteful government agencies for good.”

While it’s unclear how “senior” this administration official is — many senior Trump officials are still being paid, while the author claims to be “one of the senior officials working without a paycheck” — the op-ed could offer a window into another goal of this shutdown, in addition to using federal workers’ paychecks as leverage in an attempt to extract border wall funds from Congress: starving the government.

The op-ed’s author wrote that “many federal agencies are now operating more effectively from the top down on a fraction of their workforce” and that “we do not want most employees to return, because we are working better without them.”

Roughly 800,000 federal employees are currently going without pay, and millions of Americans who rely on the agencies those employees usually run — everything from the Food and Drug Administration to the Department of the Interior to the Department of Homeland Security — are going without services, except for those provided by workers deemed essential to national security or public safety.

“Now that we are shut down, not only are we identifying and eliminating much of the sabotage and waste, but we are finally working on the president’s agenda,” the official wrote, adding in conclusion: “Wasteful government agencies are fighting for relevance but they will lose. Now is the time to deliver historic change by cutting them down forever.”

[Grasswire2]

1. Bannon's plan, remember? nt

[msongs]

2. drown it in a bathtub. remember that one? nt

[Journeyman]

3. Another way to look at it: This may have been a ploy to get the Democrats to cave to Trump . . .

and give him his wall so they could get the government re-opened and put the kibosh to this "plan."

[AlexSFCA]

4. that's been gop goal for the longest time

dismantle most federal agencies. Federal employees who vote republican must not care about their job and benefits.

[allgood33]

5. If the media would do its part in exposing this as a possible GOP plan people would respond.

They simply promote all things Trump without delving into what is going on behind the scenes. If furloughed workers were able to hear and understand this, things would be different and the Trump supporters among them would change their minds about him.

[Achilleaze]

6. "Starve the Beast" - Longtime kristofascist republican plan to take down America

and replace it with their kristofascist state, provoke Armageddon, sit back and wait for Jesus to float their smug asses up into the clouds, while scourging all the pointy-headed thinkers who refuse to kiss ass.

[Grasswire2]

7. must think more cynically...

This is a plot to destroy America.

Much more dastardly than the GOP plan above.

Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller are immersed in much darker vision for us. Catastrophic collapse.