‘Worse than COVID’: Local Virginia leaders urge action in response to federal funding cuts

“We got through COVID because we had a lot of federal support,” said Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeffrey McKay. “We will get no federal support with this. In fact, it is federal actions that are causing these challenges.”

As news broke Tuesday that the US Supreme Court halted an order requiring the Trump administration to rehire fired probationary workers, a Virginia House of Delegates emergency committee met in Alexandria with researchers and local officials from Northern Virginia in search of solutions to the economic crisis unfolding across the region. 

While Republicans like Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears downplay the impacts of thousands of job cuts to the federal workforce, local leaders like Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeffrey McKay are urging state leaders to act fast to address the economic fallout. 

“What we’re facing here is far worse than COVID,” McKay said in remarks to the committee. “We got through COVID because we had a lot of federal support. We will get no federal support with this. In fact, it is federal actions that are causing these challenges.”

A dizzying pace of attacks on federal workers

Since the second Trump administration began in January, the president, his top advisor Elon Musk, and top Cabinet officials have launched an all-out assault on the federal workforce, firing and laying off tens of thousands of workers in the name of so-called “government efficiency.” The administration has fired and rehired workers across agencies such as the US Department of Health and the Department of Education, and has pushed to suspend collective bargaining rights for federal workers. 

All these actions are legally questionable, and in many cases, are being challenged in the courts. But the US Supreme Court, with its majority of conservative justices, including three appointed by Trump, has already granted Trump a number of legal victories related to federal workforce cases. 

One fired federal worker, Alissa Tafti, a former economist, called on Virginia leaders to speak up about the importance of federal workers and to push back on the Trump administration’s demonization of them. 

“Every time you take food out of your refrigerator, a federal employee is making sure that that food is safe for you to eat,” Tafti said. “(Every time) you turn on the tap and you pour yourself a glass of water, there’s federal employees that are making sure that the regulations are being abided by to make that safe.” 

Policy recommendations

McKay of Fairfax county presented a list of policy recommendations inspired by COVID-era programs that included subsidies for child care centers expected to take a hit in business as fired federal workers pull their kids out of expensive daycare centers; establishing a housing assistance fund for renters and homeowners who lose their job due to federal actions; a temporary moratorium on utility companies shutting off services due to nonpayment for people who lost their jobs due to federal actions; and the establishment of a utility assistance program. 

There are about 320,000 federal civilian employees who live in Virginia, more than most states.

While the federal workforce is most commonly associated with Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, researchers today emphasized that federal workers actually live throughout the state, according to a presentation by the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. 

These public sector workers are highly-paid, highly-skilled, and highly-educated, meaning it has been and will continue to be hard for them to find new jobs here in Virginia. As the Virginia economy slowly recovers from the economic fallout of the federal jobs cuts, many people are expected to leave Virginia in search of better opportunities, according to the Weldon Cooper presentation.

A point of emphasis at Tuesday’s meeting was the ripple effects of firing federal workers and cutting federal spending, and the way the pullback will bleed money from different parts of Virginia’s economy. Restaurants and hotels are expecting slower traffic. Nonprofits that typically rely on donations from people with jobs tied to the federal government are expected to feel the squeeze. 

Tafti  reminded the committee the goal of the Trump administration’s swift and severe cuts to the federal workforce are not about efficiency but rather to terrorize federal workers. She said the top concern she hears from fired federal workers is about their health care and how they will be able to treat serious medical conditions – a problem that will impact the broader community. 

“They’re facing losing the ability to be able to treat those medical conditions, and that burden is also going to fall on the state when they can’t do that,” Tafti said.