Tag Archive for: Federal Workforce

215,000 Federal Civilian Employees Were Tax-Delinquent in 2024: IG Report

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Some 215,000 federal civilian employees owed the government money in unpaid taxes in Fiscal Year 2024, according to a May 6 report by the Treasury Inspector General (IG) for Tax Administration. The number grew by more than 40% since Fiscal Year 2021, despite a growth of only 4% in the federal civilian workforce, marking yet another unsung failure of the Biden administration. While the IG proposes partial policy solutions, the extent of tax delinquency among federal workers suggests a deeper, moral crisis.

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 (which ran from October 2020 to September 2021), some 149,000 federal civilian taxpayers (4.9% of the workforce) were behind on their taxes. This could possibly be related to the COVID pandemic, but government employees were paid regularly throughout that period.

However, since then, the delinquency rate only skyrocketed. In FY2022, 180,000 federal civilian employees (6.0%) were delinquent. In FY2023, delinquency reached 191,000 employees (6.2%); and in FY2024, the number hit 215,000, or 6.9% of the workforce. Over this period, the federal civilian workforce only grew by 4%, from 3.0 million in FY2021 to 3.1 million in FY2022.

As the delinquency rate increased, so did the amount of money owed by federal employees in federal taxes. In FY2021, delinquent federal civilian taxpayers owed $1.5 billion. But, in FY2024, they owed $2.1 billion.

When the IG expanded the scope of its review from federal civilian employees to include both employees and retirees, it found that the problem only increased in scale, though at a slightly lower rate. In FY2021, some 401,000 federal civilian employees and retirees (4.0%) owed $4.8 billion in unpaid taxes. By FY2024, 572,000 employees and retirees (5.7%) owed $6.3 billion.

The IG anticipated a question many readers would ask themselves: which federal departments have the highest rates of employee noncompliance? The U.S. Postal Service topped the list, with 10.1% of its employees owing $570 million in unpaid taxes. Next was the Veterans Administration, where 7.3% owed $379 million in taxes. After that, the order becomes jumbled, with between 5.4% and 7.1% of civilian employees in various military and security departments (including each of the Army, Navy, Defense, and DHS) owing between $145 million and $115 million.

The IG report implied that one reason for the high delinquency rates in some departments is a legal information barrier that hampers accountability. “Delinquency rates among employees are partially dependent on whether agencies can hold employees accountable for their lack of tax compliance,” it stated. “The Treasury Department is permitted to hold employees accountable for tax delinquencies. As a result, the Treasury Department’s 2.4 percent delinquency rate is relatively low compared to other federal agencies.”

However, “Due to privacy restrictions under Internal Revenue Code Section 6103, the IRS cannot share specific employee related tax information with the delinquent employee’s federal agency,” it added.

Beyond this long-term, systemic issue, the IG report suggested that the recent rise in federal employees not paying taxes was due to the suspension of collection programs during COVID. “IRS Collection management attributed the year-to-year increase to the temporary pauses of levy programs, the Automated Substitute for Return program (an enforcement tool to address nonfilers), and collection notice issuance during the pandemic and recovery years,” the report concluded. “The IRS began a phased-in resumption of the levy program in August 2024 and anticipates that the delinquency rates will decrease in the coming years.”

Effectively, the IRS simply suspended its tax collection enforcement mechanisms for the pandemic and didn’t bother restarting them until around four years later — months from the next presidential election.

The IG report included some data suggesting these measures were successful. For instance, the IG got the IRS to mass-issue one-time notices to the delinquent federal employees. After issuing the notice, the IRS collected $58 million, the report said. Fifty-nine thousand employees made a payment, and 4,700 paid their full balance.

But that still only offers a partial solution. Less than half of the federal employees who owed taxes responded to the notice. The problem goes deeper than COVID-era enforcement suspension, and thus it requires a deeper solution.

This point is also evident from the IG’s finding that “approximately 50,000 federal civilian employees failed to file a tax return for multiple years.” There were 25,438 employees with two “unresolved” years, 13,687 with three, 6,209 with four, 2,761 with five, 1,020 with six, 381 with seven, 102 with eight, and 20 employees who had not filed a tax return in nine or more years.

For the 122 employees with eight or more unfiled tax returns, the IG “referred these taxpayers to Criminal Investigation for review because the IRS’s Collection function had not.”

Such a revelation is shocking. Amid the busyness of life, the possibility of exigent circumstances, and natural human limits, it is conceivable that someone may innocently forget to file his or her taxes once, perhaps even twice in a row (failing to file in non-consecutive years is unlikely due to needing to provide your past years’ AGI on your current year’s return.) Even still, it is nearly impossible for the ordinary American to avoid the omnipresent tax service ads that appear each spring, making it nearly impossible for anyone to forget to file taxes at all.

But for a person to not file taxes at all for the better part of a decade, no explanation presents itself except that the person refused to file taxes as a deliberate choice. That is, well-paid employees who persistently fail to file tax returns seem to be operating under the belief that the rules apply to everyone else, just not to them.

Furthermore, these are not just ordinary citizens, going about their lives with so little interaction with the federal government that they forget it even exists (as blissful and utopian as that may be). These are federal employees. They think about the federal government every working day of their lives because it is literally their boss. They also have a greater understanding than the ordinary citizen about the importance of federal funding and what it achieves.

Federal employees love to bear the title, “civil servant.” And there are many conscientious, hardworking federal employees for which this label is true. But the term “civil servant” implies a person who serves the public. Those who take a salary from Uncle Sam but refuse to return his cut to the common pot are better describing as “leeching off of” the public than “serving” it.

“Federal employees are held to a higher standard to file and pay their taxes since their compensation is primarily from federal taxes,” the IG report concluded. “As the agency responsible for administering federal tax law, the IRS must ensure that federal employees comply with the tax law to maintain the public’s confidence.”

As one negative side-effect, the report suggested, “If taxpayers are aware that federal employees are not tax compliant, it may impact their willingness to comply with their own tax matters.”

In other words, if private citizens notice and imitate the bad example of federal employees, it could result in fewer taxes paid all around. “Bad company ruins good morals” (1 Corinthians 15:33).

Perhaps that explains how federal employees started down the road to not paying their taxes in the first place. Federal employees are primarily overseen by politicians. Perhaps, over decades of selfish rule, America’s federal workforce has gradually learned from their political bosses the art of believing the rules do not apply to them.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Amid Global Unrest, Faith and Charity Mark Christmas in Washington and Beyond

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This holiday season, even amid persistent global unrest, a spirit of renewal and joyful celebration is sweeping the nation — starting right at the heart of the federal government.

President Donald Trump just delivered an early holiday gift to federal workers: an executive order granting paid days off on Christmas Eve (December 24) and the day after Christmas (December 26). With Christmas falling on a Thursday, this creates a five-day weekend for most employees. Essential operations, including national security and public safety, continue as normal. However, it’s noteworthy that while presidents have provided extra time off around Christmas in the past — sometimes a full day or half-day on Christmas Eve — granting both surrounding days has been regarded as “unprecedented.”

In addition, President Trump announced a one-time $1,776 “Warrior Dividend” bonus for over 1.45 million active-duty and eligible reserve military servicemembers, symbolizing the year of America’s founding. Funded through reallocated housing allowance resources, this tax-free supplement recognizes service members’ sacrifices and arrives just in time for Christmas.

At the Pentagon — now branded as the Department of War — Secretary Pete Hegseth and his wife, Jennifer, hosted a Christmas Worship Service on Wednesday in the courtyard. Hundreds of military and civilian personnel gathered for an afternoon of praise to “the King of Kings and Lord of Lords,” with guests such as Christian artists Matthew West and Anne Wilson in attendance, and remarks from Rev. Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse.

“I want to thank you all for sharing in this first Christmas Worship Service here at the Pentagon,” Hegseth said during the event. “It’s the least we could do in this season. We do it monthly as well — a prayer service — which we will continue to do, because, as George Washington did that first year, he went on bended knee for providence in impossible tasks.”

His heartfelt words continued as he thanked his staff for their tireless efforts. “You each day are asked to do impossible things, work impossible hours, at impossible odds, which mere men and women could not do. And that’s why we bend the knee, because we know where our strength comes from, and we need that wisdom and that guidance, that providential guide in our own lives as we try to act on behalf of our nation.”

In his own remarks, Rev. Graham praised the leadership’s support for faith and the military, stating, “It’s not just the [War] Department’s top leader, but it’s our president — his support of faith and supporting Christmas and supporting our military the way he does. It’s an honor to be here and to be at the Pentagon with these men and women who defend our nation and who put their life on the line.” And as he went on to state, the most important thing anyone can do is to stay “focused on the word of God.”

For many, this Christmas season as well as the many months leading up to it has not been joyful. 2025 saw wars, shootings, tense debates, and more. And yet, even amid uncertainties and unrest, acts of faith and charity play their role in shining light in the darkness. This is what Family Research Council’s David Closson highlighted in a comment to The Washington Stand.

“Both of these gestures — President Trump extending time for families to rest and Secretary Hegseth publicly celebrating the birth of Christ — may seem small on the surface,” Closson said, “but in a moment marked by war, unrest, and deep national anxiety, they serve as meaningful reminders of things our culture desperately needs: rest, gratitude, and moral clarity.”

As he went on to say, “Giving federal workers additional time around Christmas highlights something Christians have long affirmed: human beings are not machines. We are made for worship, for family, and for rhythms of rest.” And “at a time when our society feels stretched thin by bad news and constant crisis, allowing space to breathe and to be with loved ones speaks to the value of the human person and the goodness of God’s design for work and rest.”

However, these gestures are also meaningful because, as Closson put it, even just “Secretary Hegseth’s willingness to gather leaders at the Pentagon to worship is profoundly encouraging. It testifies to the enduring fortitude of the Christian faith. Empires rise and fall, economies strengthen and weaken, but Christ remains Lord.” When that truth is acknowledged publicly, he added, “especially from those tasked with safeguarding the nation, it reminds believers that God is not absent. Even in turbulent times, He is at work, and His people continue to bear witness to the hope found in Christ alone.”

With the New Year only weeks away, Closson concluded with encouragement for the year ahead.

“As we approach the final days of 2025 and look ahead to a new year already filled with uncertainty, my message is simple: Christians do not face the future with fear, but with confidence in God’s sovereignty,” he observed. “The world will always have unresolved conflicts, but none of them unsettle the One who rules history. Our calling remains the same: to be faithful in our families and communities, to pray for our leaders, to speak the truth with courage, and to love our neighbors with the compassion of Christ.”

“The Christmas season anchors us in a reality far larger than the headlines, namely, that God entered our world in the person of Jesus Christ,” Closson added. “Alongside the resurrection, the incarnation is the most important event in human history. Because He came, we are never abandoned, and because He reigns, we can face 2026 with unwavering hope.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

Partner with The Washington Stand to bring news from a biblical worldview to readers nationwide. From now until December 31, every gift will be doubled through our year-end Challenge Match.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

New Trump ‘Tech Force’ to Recruit Silicon Valley Stars to Fix Government IT Problems with AI

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A new phase of President Donald Trump’s Artificial Intelligence Action Plan (AIAP) will recruit top Silicon Valley and other information technology stars to join Tech Force, a cross-agency initiative to tackle the federal government’s toughest digital challenges, U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor said Monday.

“This is a clarion call,” Kupor said in a statement. “If you want to help your country lead in the age of AI, we need you. The US Tech Force offers the chance to build and lead projects of national importance, while creating powerful career opportunities in both public service and the private sector. I am grateful to President Trump for prioritizing America’s leadership in AI and empowering a cross-government effort to close our nation’s AI talent gaps.”

The statement described the new initiative as “a critical aspect of this directive — a government-wide effort to surge teams of top engineers, data scientists, and technology leaders to tackle the government’s most complex and large-scale challenges and deliver on the president’s vision. In collaboration with leading technology companies, participants will receive world-class technical training and work closely with senior managers sourced directly from industry.”

Tech Force is a joint initiative centered in OPM — the federal government’s central civil service human relations agency — and collaborating with departments of State, Treasury, War, Interior, Agriculture, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation and Energy.

In addition, initial agency collaborators will include the IRS, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, and the General Services Administration (GSA), which is the office supply and house-keeping operation for the Washington bureaucracy. Also involved in Tech Force will be the Chief AI Officer for the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, the Special Adviser to the President for AI and Crypto, the White House Office of Public Liaison and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

From the private sector, participants in the opening stages of Tech Force activity will include Adobe, Amazon Web Services, Anduril, Box, Dell Technologies, Docusign, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, Palantir, Robinhood, SAP, ServiceNow, Snowflake, Synopsys, Workday, and xAI.

“In addition, Tech Force is partnering with NobleReach Foundation — a nonpartisan talent platform that brings together America’s best and brightest across industry, academia, and government, via initiatives such as its NobleReach Scholars Program — to recruit technologists and support the program,” the OPM statement said.

During a Monday call-in news conference with reporters, Kupor cited three examples of the kinds of problems Tech Force participants will be engaging in throughout the federal establishment.

“At the Department of War, they have a bunch of stuff around drones and hypersonic weapons, things of that sort where they need development work. At the Department of Energy, they are developing a big integrated platform to connect all the world’s best supercomputers and AI systems, so the applications there would be either scientific domains, quantum mechanics, and so forth. At the IRS, there is a big platform buildout, there’s the new Trump Account, the new savings tool that’s been rolled out,” Kupor explained.

The initial phase of Tech Force, Kupor explained on the call, will seek to recruit 1,000 top technologists, then have departments and agencies compete for the available candidates for particular problems. The OPM chief estimated that the top slice of the 1,000 — approximately 130 persons — will be at the General Schedule (GS) 13 or 14 grade levels, which are paid $195,000 annually.

The program’s planners hope to attract both young individuals who plan on making careers in government and others who expect to work for the government for a defined period of two or so years, then return to the private sector. The OPM will function as the “centralized recruiting center,” Kupor said. He also expects the Tech Force initiative on AI to prompt similar efforts to recruit private sector talent to address other problem sectors in the federal administrative state.

“GSA is proud to partner with OPM and the Trump Administration to answer the president’s call to fast-track AI adoption across the federal government,” Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum said in the statement. “The U.S. Tech Force will be a true force multiplier, creating a pathway to bring in top private-sector talent to help drive a new era of American AI leadership inside the federal government and deliver for the American taxpayers.” The FAS is part of GSA and is the chief supply service for the daily operations of federal departments and agencies.

“The US Tech Force is America’s elite corps for the AI revolution, mobilizing the nation’s best minds to lead on digital frontlines, defend our global edge and secure our future in technological leadership,” U.S. Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) Gregory Barbaccia added in the statement. “It is a call to service for our nation’s best technologists to join a mission-critical corps that will ensure our competitiveness, modernize our government infrastructure and lead the world in innovation from education to medicine.”

The Federal CIO is an interagency coordinating forum for department and agency CIOs “for improving agency practices related to the design, acquisition, development, modernization, use, sharing, and performance of Federal information resources.”

AUTHOR

Mark Tapscott

Mark Tapscott is senior congressional analyst at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

Partner with The Washington Stand to bring news from a biblical worldview to readers nationwide. From now until December 31, every gift will be doubled through our year-end Challenge Match.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Payroll Costs of the Federal Swamp Exploded 24% during Biden Era

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There were 5% more federal workers — 2.77 million in 2020 to 2.90 million in 2025 — when Joe Biden left the White House, but the costs of paying this vast legion of bureaucrats exploded 24% during the same period, according to a new report by a nonprofit government watchdog.

Much of the skyrocketing payroll costs is due to spiking paychecks going to employees making more than $100,000 annually in salary during the 2020-2024 period, according to Open the Books (OTB), the Illinois-based nonprofit that maintains the world’s largest, most current internet database of public spending:

  • Federal workers making $100,000+ annually increased 49% from 532,784 to 793,537.
  • Those making $200,000+ saw their ranks grow 82%, from 37,631 to 68,445.
  • Bureaucrats being paid $300,000+ rose 84%, from 7,692 to 14,143.

Federal worker compensation increased so widely in the government workforce that the average pay exceeded $100,000 in 117 of 127 executive agencies and the White House. In 2024, 31,452 federal employees outearned every one of the country’s 50 state governors. The average salary of all 50 state governors was just under $150,000 in 2024. New York has the highest-paid chief state executive at $250,000.

Most federal workers are paid according to the General Schedule, which includes 15 grades and 10 pay steps within each grade. The lowest-paid federal worker is a GS-1 who at Step 1 was paid $21,986 annually in 2024. By advancing to Step 10, a GS-1 worker would see an increase in pay to $27,502.

At the highest level of the GS schedule, the GS-15, Step 10, which in 2024 received $159,950. Step 1for the GS-15 was paid $123,401. Most workers in the GS-13 to GS-15 are in supervisory positions. These salary figures do not include the cost of federal employee benefits, which on average add an additional 30% to the total compensation for each position.

The next rung up from the General Schedule is the Senior Executive Service (SES), which includes five levels with pay ranging in 2024 from $147,649 to a maximum of $221,900. Members of the SES are typically the highest-ranked career workers.

Other pay classifications in the federal workforce include those covering law enforcement, administrative law judges, and senior-level science and professional positions.

The highest paid federal worker at the end of 2024, according to the OTB report, was cardiologist Gary H. Gibbons, who was director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health and earned $519,246 last year, a 28% increase from the $406,095 he received in 2021.

Gibbons was the second-highest paid federal employee that year, trailing only Anthony Fauci, then-Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), who got $417,608. When Fauci retired early in 2023, his salary had jumped to $480,654.

Currently, the president of the United States is paid $400,000 annually, while the vice president gets $235,100. Trump returns each of his paychecks to the U.S. Treasury.

Among the 20 largest federal departments and agencies, the Department of War tops the list, with 189,272 employees making more than $100,000 annually. The average salary for the 761,524 total workforce was $82,516. The Small Business Administration (SBA) ranks 20th, employing 7,878 employees.

The SBA was notable for being the only federal department or agency in the top 20 to see its payroll costs go down between 2020 to 2024, with a 26% decline in the workforce total, but only a 3% decline in the total cost of that payroll.

Of the other 19 departments and agencies in the top 20, 15 saw significant increases in both their total number of employees and the cost of their payroll. The average workforce jump for the 15 was 10%. On the total payroll cost side, 19 of the top 20 saw an average cost increase of 23%. The Department of Health and Human Services (39%), Department of Veterans Affairs (38%), and the Department of Energy (37%) had the biggest payroll cost hikes.

Asked about the above figures, U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) spokesman Rachel Cauley told The Washington Stand that “so far under Trump, the government workforce has shrunk by almost 300,000 positions.” After the federal government was shut down on October 1 due to the inability of Congress to approve a budget for Fiscal Year 2026, Trump was talking about firing some portion of the approximately 670,000 federal workers classified as “non-essential,” but to date, none of those employees have received notice of being terminated.

Many of the reductions in the federal workforce under Trump are the result of the activities of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), formerly headed by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. Caucuses were formed in both the Senate and House to support the DOGE effort to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.

And U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kapur told TWS that “these numbers demonstrate what most people now recognize — the Biden administration did not take seriously their role as stewards of taxpayer dollars. The Trump administration is very clear about its responsibilities to Americans.”

Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.), a member of the House DOGE Caucus, lauded the OTB report.

“President Trump is leading the charge to cut waste, fraud, and abuse through DOGE. I’m proud to serve on the Congressional DOGE Caucus, where I voted to claw back nearly $10 billion in reckless spending — including shutting down the left-wing slush fund at USAID. This report proves there’s more swamp to drain, and I’m ready to deliver more DOGE cuts in Congress.”

AUTHOR

Mark Tapscott

Mark Tapscott is senior congressional analyst at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Federal Layoffs Begin as Government Shutdown Enters Day 10

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In a pair of votes Thursday night, the U.S. Senate failed for the eighth time to end the government shutdown, which reached 10 days on Friday. Republicans have backed a clean continuing resolution (CR), while Democrats demand a major increase in health care spending, but neither side seems close to budging from their position. On Friday, the Trump administration also advanced a hitherto unused gambit that it hopes can break through the sea ice.

As he has done every work day of the shutdown, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) scheduled votes Thursday night on two proposals to end the shutdown. The Democratic proposal, a continuing resolution through October 31 with $1.5 trillion in health care and other spending, failed (47-50) to gain any Republican votes. The Republican proposal, a “clean” CR through November 21, failed (54-45) to break the filibuster.

These votes occurred mostly on party lines. Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.) joined Republicans in voting for the measure, while Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Angus King (I-Maine) did not. Masto and King, who caucus with Democrats, voted with Republicans on five previous votes. Otherwise, the Senate has seen no aisle-crossing nor — more to the point — no movement towards a resolution.

On Friday, the White House attempted to introduce this movement towards resolution by laying off federal workers. “The RIFs [Reductions in Force] have begun,” tweeted the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Russ Vought tweeted.

The OPM has broad discretion over the federal workforce during a government shutdown. It has traditionally used this discretion to determine which federal workers would be furloughed, and which would have to remain at their posts without pay. This is the first time a presidential administration has attempted to lay off staff during a government shutdown.

According to initial media reports, these layoffs affected at least the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Treasury. “All HHS employees receiving reduction-in-force notices were designated non-essential by their respective divisions,” announced HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon. “HHS continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”

The White House will not proceed with layoffs uncontested, however. Two unions, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the AFL-CIO have both promised lawsuits to block the action.

At least before the layoff announcement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) thought — or said he thought — all the cards were coming up aces for his Democratic conference. “Every day gets better for us,” Schumer beamed to Punchbowl reporters in a Wednesday interview. “Every time they try something, it doesn’t quite work. Even the threat of shutting things — ‘We’re gonna close this, we’re gonna close that.’ It’s [reflecting] at least as negative on them as it is on us. I think more so on them.”

On the surface, Schumer is putting on a bold face, claiming that Democrats have the better hand, so why would they fold?

Recall for a moment that the only reason this shutdown happened is that, the last time Schumer voted to keep the government open, he took withering fire from his far-left base in New York, where he is vulnerable to a primary challenge from a rising progressive darling like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.). So, this time, Schumer chose to lead his party into almost certain defeat simply to “fight Trump.” The reality is that this political dynamic — the real cause of the shutdown — remains unchanged, so why would Schumer change course now?

Some rogue Republicans have begun to echo the Democrats’ talking points. “I’m actually putting the blame on the Speaker and Leader Thune in the Senate,” insisted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

One possible explanation for Greene’s position has nothing to do with the shutdown per se. Greene is driving a discharge petition, mostly supported by Democrats, that would force the administration to turn over information on Jeffrey Epstein. The shutdown has delayed the House swearing in newly elected Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who would likely provide the last signature needed to force a floor vote on that petition.

Greene tried to justify her assigning blame to Republican leadership, “We control the House. We control the Senate. We have the White House.” In reality, however, these facts undercut her position; Republicans are united in their desire to fund the government, and the only thing preventing them from doing so is Senate Democrats, who have withheld the votes necessary to clear the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.

Schumer claims to have the better hand, but that is, by definition, a bluff coming from the leader of the minority party. “If Democrats would only agree, we could reopen the government in just a few hours,” protested Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Republicans, for their part, have underscored Schumer’s words as a fair characterization of his position. “This notion that somehow, in this political game, the Democrats believe, according to their leader, that ‘every day gets better for us’ — that is not the experience of the American people,” declared Thune.

“Workers are missing paychecks; travelers are missing flights; businesses are struggling; military families are forced to rely on food pantries; but to Chuck Schumer that means ‘every day gets better,’” added White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson. “No matter what Chuck Schumer thinks, Americans struggling is not good and the Democrats must stop inflicting this pain on them and reopen the government now.”

Behind the scenes, “the president is working on ways that he may have as well to ensure that troops are paid,” revealed House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). “The Republican Party stands for paying the troops. The Democrats are the ones that are demonstrating over and over and over — now eight times — that you don’t want troops to be paid.”

Paychecks for federal employees are not the only significant issue languishing in limbo during this shutdown. With each passing day, Congress also loses valuable time it could be using to fund the government through regular order — which was the whole point of a short-term CR in the first place. The Democratic minority in the Senate shows no sign yet of surrender, but we shall soon see what leverage the White House is able to exert through federal layoffs.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

White House Prepares for Potential Government Shutdown with Mass Firings Plan

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As the threat of a government shutdown looms, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has directed federal agencies to brace for significant workforce reductions in programs not legally mandated to continue.

The possibility of a government shutdown next week hinges on a heated dispute between Democrats and Republicans over federal funding. According to Politico, “The House passed a stopgap spending measure to float federal operations through Nov. 21,” but Democrats “refused to advance it, demanding that Republicans come to the table to negotiate a bipartisan package that could include an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies.” This standoff centers on proposed revisions to President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” enacted in July, which has become a flashpoint in the negotiations.

Should Congress fail to reach an agreement, the OMB is poised to implement drastic measures outlined in a recent memo. The memo begins with a stark warning: “Over the past 10 fiscal years, Congress has consistently passed Continuing Resolutions (CRs) on or by September 30 on a bipartisan basis. Unfortunately, congressional Democrats are signaling that they intend to break this bipartisan trend and shut down the government in the coming days over a series of insane demands, including $1 trillion in new spending.”

The OMB memo then addressed the House-passed Continuing Resolution, which all but one House Democrat voted against, stating that “congressional Democrats are currently blocking this clean CR due to their partisan demands.” It underscored the urgency of preparation, noting, “it has never been more important for the Administration to be prepared for a shutdown if the Democrats choose to pursue one.” The plan directs agencies to take the following steps:

“Programs that did not benefit from an infusion of mandatory appropriations will bear the brunt of a shutdown, and we must continue our planning efforts in the event Democrats decide to shut down the government. If Congress successfully passes a clean CR prior to September 30, the additional steps outlined in this email will not be necessary.

“With respect to those Federal programs whose funding would lapse and which are otherwise unfunded, such programs are no longer statutorily required to be carried out. Therefore, consistent with applicable law, including the requirements of 5 C.F.R. part 351, agencies are directed to use this opportunity to consider Reduction in Force (RIF) notices for all employees in programs, projects, or activities (PPAs) that satisfy all three of the following conditions: (1) discretionary funding lapses on October 1, 2025; (2) another source of funding, such as H.R. 1 (Public Law 119-21) is not currently available; and (3) the PPA is not consistent with the President’s priorities.”

The memo concluded: “We remain hopeful that Democrats in Congress will not trigger a shutdown and the steps outlined above will not be necessary. The President supports enactment of a clean CR to ensure no discretionary spending lapse after September 30, 2025, and OMB hopes the Democrats will agree.”

The plan has drawn sharp criticism from Democratic leaders. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) denounced the move, stating, “Trump is lawless,” and argued that such actions would persist “with or without [a shutdown].” He further claimed, “This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government. These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) took to X with a more fiery response, writing, “Donald Trump and MAGA extremists are plotting mass firings of federal workers starting October 1. Their goal is to ruin your life and punish hardworking families already struggling with Trump Tariffs and inflation.” However, many Republicans are joining the dialogue. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote on X how “the problem is that Democrats only want to meet to repeat their demands that we include FREE healthcare to illegal aliens, half a billion dollars to prop up liberal news outlets, other leftist priorities, and a MASSIVE $1.5 TRILLION spending HIKE in a simple 7-week funding bill. They are holding government funding hostage.”

Democrats are claiming that, should the government shut down, the blame would fall on Republicans. Johnson addressed this, stating, “House Republicans are doing our job and restoring regular order to the appropriations process. If Democrats fail to pass our clean, nonpartisan, 24-page CR to keep the government open the American People will know where the blame lies.”

Efforts to negotiate have hit a wall. President Trump had planned a meeting with top congressional Democrats late this week to discuss funding and avert a shutdown, but on Tuesday, he canceled it, labeling the Democrats’ demands “unserious and ridiculous.” He emphasized, “We must keep the Government open, and legislate like true Patriots rather than hold American Citizens hostage,” warning that failure to do so would lead to “another long and brutal slog through their radicalized quicksand.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

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The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Ernst Exposes Federal Workers Simultaneously Getting Paychecks from Multiple Agencies

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Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) recently announced that she is not seeking re-election in 2026, but her exposure Tuesday of federal workers illegally drawing paychecks from multiple agencies shows the Iowa Republican isn’t backing off the anti-waste and fraud crusade that she has led since coming to the Senate in 2015.

“As you know, federal employees are prohibited from being paid for more than one full-time position for the government at the same time, with some limited exceptions,” Ernst told U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor in a September 22 letter made available to The Washington Stand. “Yet, I’ve identified numerous examples of full-time federal employees moonlighting for other agencies or government contractors without approval or knowledge of their managers.”

As an example, Ernst told Kupor that “from 2021 to 2024, a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) employee held multiple other full-time government contractor jobs, frequently billing taxpayers for more than 24 hours of work in a single day. In addition to HUD, she was paid by AmeriCorps and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Since she teleworked in all three positions, she was able to hide her overlapping jobs and get away with billing taxpayers $225,866 for hours she never worked. She claimed she worked 26 hours on 13 of the 21 workdays in a single month.”

The former HUD employee — Crissy Monique Baker of Fairfax, Virginia — pleaded guilty June 26 and will be sentenced September 30 in federal District Court.

“The investigation that led to her guilty plea required work by investigators in Offices of the Inspector General for the following agencies: AmeriCorps; Housing and Urban Development; the Department of Energy; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; the Department of Homeland Security; the General Services Administration; the Department of Health and Human Services; and the Department of Treasury (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration), the Department of Defense (Defense Criminal Investigate Service), and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, along with the FBI Washington Field Office,” according to the HUD Inspector-General.

In another illustration of the problem, Ernst told Kupor that “beginning in 2023, a senior human resources official at the Peace Corps was also employed as a contractor for two other government agencies, the Federal Housing and Finance Agency [FHFA] and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC]. He falsified timecards submitted to the different agencies and double billed taxpayers for tens of thousands of dollars. According to his LinkedIn profile, he was ‘key in the development’ of the Peace Corps’ remote work policy, which he presumably took advantage of to get away with his job juggling.”

Ernst further pointed to examples of federal workers at OPM and NSA double-billing taxpayers for work they were not performing.

“A full-time contractor for OPM was simultaneously employed full-time for NSA. While required to work on-site at both jobs, he wasn’t showing up at either. He got away with it for four months, during which time he double billed taxpayers for $70,646. A full-time contractor at the NSA headquarters was actually working for another DOD contractor for nearly a year. She submitted 79 fraudulent timesheets for the NSA job, costing taxpayers $65,265 for hours she never worked,” Ernst told Kupor.

A decision in 2022 by an unknown official of the Biden administration resulted in the redaction of names and related information for more than 350,000 federal workers and the worksites of 281,000. The names had been requested in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the non-profit government watchdog Open the Books. The redactions seriously hampered Ernst’s efforts, and she worked with the non-profit to understand how double and triple paychecks going to one federal worker could continue for months and even years without being detected.

“Each of these cases demonstrates how easy it is for corrupt public employees to pull down a pair of paychecks without actually earning either, sometimes for years or even a decade or more. While some government managers do not know, or even care, where their employees are, I tried tracking down the exact locations of the federal workforce with the help of the non-profit transparency group Open the Books. The quest turned into a game of bureaucrat hide-and-seek with the Biden administration redacting the names of 350,861 rank-and-file employees and the worksites of over 281,000 bureaucrats,” Ernst explained.

Ernst gave her “September 2025 Squeal Award to the double-dealing bureaucrats bringing home two or more paychecks but doing nothing.” She is also introducing legislation — the Dismantling Double Dippers Act of 2025 — to mandate that federal personnel officials develop the capability of cross-checking government payrolls to prevent employees from drawing paychecks from more than one department or agency.

Kupor, as OPM Director, is the chief human resource manager for all civilian federal employees, and his agency maintains the most comprehensive database about career and non-career government workers. Ernst, who is co-chairman of the Senate DOGE Caucus and a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wonders if OPM can do the data cross-checks that should catch employees drawing paychecks from more than one department or agency.

Mclaurine Pinover, OPM spokesman, told The Washington Stand that the personnel agency “supports reviewing the available data to ensure federal workers are not working multiple jobs within the government. Unfortunately, some bad actors are taking advantage of the fact there are over 100 HR systems in the federal government that don’t communicate with one another. OPM is working to tackle this issue and others in order to root out fraud and abuse.”

AUTHOR

Mark Tapscott

Mark Tapscott is senior congressional analyst at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Trump Fires 50% of Education Department Employees

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President Donald Trump’s order to reduce the U.S. Department of Education by half will improve education, give parents more resources, and save taxpayer dollars, says one congressman, who noted the greatest opposition comes from teachers unions and “Marxists who hate faith, family, free market, education.”

Department of Education (DOE) employees were told to leave their offices by 6 p.m. Tuesday night and not to report to work on Wednesday, as DOE offices remained closed and locked.

The reduction in forces reduces the total number of employees at the Department of Education from 4,133 to 2,183. Of those let go, 313 accepted buyouts and 259 came as part of the deferred resignation program. Former employees will be placed on administrative leave starting next Friday, March 21 and will receive full salary and benefits until June 9, with severance pay afterwards. The move will close seven of the DOE’s 12 satellite offices, affecting the cities of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.

“That’s the way the real world works,” Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) told “Washington Watch” Wednesday night. “What we’ve had with the Department of Education since [the 1970s] is a terrible return on investment. Our kids have been dumbed down. We’ve been made to be more divisive. We don’t have the pride in our country — no connection with our Founding Fathers, and a God Who actually had His hands all over our nation.”

“If our children are trained to be ignorant, we’re going to lose our culture. It’s just a matter of time,” said Owens. With President Trump’s decentralizing actions, “We have a chance to reset this for generations to come.”

The firings may bring real taxpayer savings, experts say. At the DOE, “86 employees were making an average salary of $201,374; more than 1,000 employees were making between $167,603 and $195,200; and more than 1,000 were making between $142,488 and $185,234, according to Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children, a school choice advocacy organization.

Teachers unions and Democrats reacted to the layoffs with fury.

“Authoritarian Republicans have chosen to attack and demean our BIPOC, immigrant, and LGBTQIA+ students” with “white-washed history cloaked as ‘patriotism,’” said St. Paul (Minnesota) Federation of Teachers President Leah VanDassor. “Fascist regimes always start by targeting the most vulnerable populations.” In fact, fascist regimes rely on public education to indoctrinate impressionable students in their logically untenable ideologies.

“Dismantling the Department of Education” is “simply about taking away resources from our public schools,” claimed Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D).

“I’m really angry about this!” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told MSNBC about the department’s impending closure on Saturday. She claimed the administration plans to make DOE unable to work, and “reading programs, the computer programs, the after-school programs” will “go away … [I]f the funding goes away, a kid doesn’t get physical therapy or occupational therapy.”

On Tuesday, Weingarten also posted her “solidarity” with the Chicago Teachers Union, which has closed struggling Chicago schools five times in the last 13 years.

“Firing half of the staff so that the Department of Education cannot function will jeopardize the resources, programs, and protections that give millions of students the opportunity to succeed,” said the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor union. The 12-million-member coalition returned to familiar Democratic talking points, accusing the Trump administration of “pushing a Project 2025/DOGE agenda.”

The backlash was expected, because unions “prioritize mediocrity instead of meritocracy,” Owens remarked on “Washington Watch.” Re-empowering local communities “will help your child to really thrive. You now have the funds to do it, because they’re not being wasted here in D.C.,” he said. “We the People can do much better without funding than having it for folks here in D.C., who have a totally different agenda and different priorities than most parents have in their in their hometowns.”

Owens noted the role of federal education bureaucracy in foisting a divisive social agenda on the nation’s children. “The reason why we’re having this conversation about men in sports and men in girls’ bathrooms [is] because of the Department of Education. The focus is totally different; it’s an ideology” promoted by “Marxists who hate faith, family, free markets, and education.”

The move begins the process of fulfilling President Trump’s campaign promise to close the Department of Education, which has had a contentious history since its founding during the Carter administration. Last week, The Wall Street Journal published a leaked administration document showing the president aims to close as many functions of the DOE as possible and transfer their control, and funding, back to the states, until Congress passes legislation closing the department altogether.

“Ready to bid farewell to the U.S. Department of Education?” asked Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), a conservative opposed to the existence of DOE on constitutional grounds.

“The president’s mandate, his directive to me, clearly is to shut down the Department of Education,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday night. “We know we’ll have to work with Congress to get that accomplished. But what we did today was to take the first step of eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat.”

“We’re not taking away education,” said McMahon. The president is instead “taking the bureaucracy out of education, so that more money flows to the states.”

If education returns to the state level, “10 states won’t be perfect, five states will be probably not so good, but they will be every bit as good as Norway, and Denmark, and Sweden, and all of the states that are rated near the top,” said President Trump last Friday. He told Secretary McMahon upon her confirmation one day earlier, “I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job.”

The most recent test results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed reading scores falling for fourth and eighth grade students in U.S. public schools. Eighth graders also saw their math scores decline since 2022. All students remained below pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

“When you think about high school students who are graduating, only 30% are reading proficiently,” McMahon noted.

Although federal education funding accounts for only about one-tenth of state and local education funds, it often comes with ideological strings. The Biden-Harris administration attempted to force local school districts to admit males into female showers, locker rooms, and sports events or lose education funding. Republicans foresee federal funding replaced with block grants controlled and managed by the states.

Education experts agreed the president’s mass layoff will not harm the quality of U.S. education. “Nothing about the U.S. Department of Education is essential, by design,” noted Neal McCluskey, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Education Freedom. “Constitutionally, education is reserved to the people and states.”

“For a generation, our nation’s education system has been held hostage by bureaucrats and schooling unions who care only about preserving their own power, not the needs of American students. During that time, the Department of Education has ballooned in size while our students have fallen further and further behind,” said Schultz. “This news is another signal that the bureaucratic state is coming to an end in America.”

“Better education is closest to the kids with parents, with local superintendents, with local school boards,” McMahon told Ingraham. “I think we’ll see our scores go up with our students [when] we can educate them with parental input, as well.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

USAID Workers Fired as Elon Musk Looks for Progress Reports

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A federal judge’s ruling has allowed President Donald Trump to continue his purge of a major government agency, firing thousands and placing thousands more on leave. As of Monday morning, nearly all U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees have been placed on “administrative leave” and at least 1,600 have been informed that they are going to be fired.

A notice on the USAID website reads, “As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAID direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally.” The notice continues, “Concurrently, USAID is beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force that will affect approximately 1,600 USAID personnel with duty stations in the United States.”

The Trump administration has been attempting to gut USAID for weeks, initially placing employees on leave for trying to skirt presidential directives, and quickly moving to firing almost the entire agency workforce. In response to a lawsuit filed by federal workers’ unions, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) halting the mass firings. Nichols, who was appointed to the federal judiciary by Trump himself in 2019, explained at the time that issuing a TRO did not mean he would ultimately agree with the unions filing the lawsuit.

On Friday, Nichols removed the TRO, rather than extending it. He explained that the unions “have not demonstrated that further preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.” Nichols wrote, “Upon scrutiny, the employment-related injuries that plaintiffs assert here are not irreparable ones warranting the ‘extraordinary remedy’ of a preliminary injunction.” Although USAID employees — particularly those stationed abroad — claimed that they would be barred from accessing agency systems necessary to their safety, Nichols found upon reviewing the evidence that this claim was unsubstantiated. He said that evidence provided by the Trump administration had “convinced the Court that plaintiffs’ initial assertions of harm were overstated.” The judge concluded, upon detailed review of testimony and documents submitted to him, that USAID employees’ concerns would be best addressed by review boards established by Congress to resolve labor and personnel disputes within the federal government.

The mass firing of USAID employees comes as Trump advisor Elon Musk, who developed the idea for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has demanded that federal employees submit reports on their productivity or face termination. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk announced that “all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.” He added, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” According to CBS News, federal employees have been given until Monday night to respond to the email, sent by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), with five bullet points listing accomplished tasks, excluding classified information.

Democrats have responded to the required productivity reports with vitriol. Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) called on federal employees to ignore the email. “This is a good opportunity for mass civil disobedience. Musk has no authority to do this,” Casten wrote on X. He continued, “Encourage all federal employees to report to work, prepare GFY letters and continue to demonstrate the public service and patriotism he lacks.” The acronym “GFY” stands for “go f*** yourself.” Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.) also launched a vulgarity-laced tirade against Musk, replying to the productivity report directive by saying, “This is the ultimate d**k boss move from Musk — except he isn’t even the boss, he’s just a d**k.” Musk noted that the “bar is very low here,” observing that an email with five bullet points “take less than 5 mins to write.”

However, even some Trump administration officials have directed federal employees to ignore the email from Musk and OPM. According to The New York Times, federal employees at the FBI and the U.S. Departments of State, Defense, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security have been instructed not to respond to the email. In most cases, the order to ignore or disregard the email was issued by a senior official in the corresponding agency, but both National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and FBI Director Kash Patel ordered employees under their supervision not to respond. Spokespersons for numerous federal agencies publicly stated that the heads of those agencies are responsible for reviewing and evaluating the work of employees.

Gabbard told intelligence community officers not to reply to the email due to “the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work…” Patel likewise told FBI employees to “pause any responses” to the email, further explaining, “The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures.” Darin S. Selnick, who is performing the duties of the Defense Department’s Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness, said in a public statement, “The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reported over the weekend, though, that he will see to it that even senior military commanders are fired if they refuse to follow orders or implement the president’s agenda. He said that former president Joe Biden “gave lawful orders. A lot of them are really bad. And it’s unfortunate how they eroded our military.” Hegseth continued, “President Trump has given another set of lawful orders. And they will be followed. If they’re not followed — and all these orders are in keeping with the Constitution and norms inside the military — if they’re not followed, then those officers will find the door.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.