The Virginia Senate advanced legislation that would give emergency assistance to federal independent contractors fired in President Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s purge of the federal government.
The debate over legislation that would offer emergency relief to Virginia federal independent contractors fired as part of the Trump administration’s purging of the federal government has given state Republicans a chance to let these Virginians know how they really feel about them.
Take Virginia Sen. Tammy Brankley Mulchi of Southside Virginia who, as she put it on the Senate floor on Thursday, was raised not to depend on “anybody for anything, and you’ve got to survive on your own.” She accused fired federal independent contractors in need of relief of “piss-poor planning.”
“Be like my daddy taught me, and have a back up plan,” Mulchi said. “If you don’t, you’re not very smart.”
Mulchi said she herself has earned federal money as an independent contractor.
“When I had a federal contract or a state contract, it was a celebration because there was a lot of pork in those contracts,” Mulchi said. “I was living large. I mean they paid me way more than the job was worth.”
Mulchi said she would support the legislation because if she didn’t, it would be “political suicide.”
“But it’s not because I agree with taking care of people that didn’t plan for a future on a contract that was not guaranteed,” Mulchi said.
The legislation includes an emergency clause to immediately offer temporary unemployment benefits for fired federal independent contractors that would expire Jan. 1, 2026. After two days of debate in the Senate the bill passed 30-1. It now has to go through the House and ultimately get enacted by Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Youngkin said at a press conference on Tuesday his administration was getting ready to roll out support for fired federal workers but did not offer details. He said the process the federal government is going through is needed because of the “inefficiency and bloat” in Washington. Youngkin was at the White House on Thursday after Trump appointed him co-chair of his Council of Governors.
“This isn’t about the workers, who I know are really, really, really scared,” Youngkin said at the Tuesday press conference. “This is about stepping back and making sure that tax dollars are being appropriately managed and deployed.”
Since Trump returned to the White House and unleashed Musk on the federal workforce, hundreds of thousands of federal workers have lost their jobs and taken to the streets in protest.
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Virginia is home to over 140,000 federal workers and is one of the states with the most to lose as a result of Trump’s federal cuts, which have raised concerns about a possible economic downturn. The Virginia House earlier this month formed an emergency committee to examine the economic impacts of Trump’s cuts to the federal government and firing of federal workers.
Among the fired is a 13-year, disabled military veteran who was fired from his job as an information technology technician with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“I voted for Donald Trump. But this is not what I was expecting,” he told WTOP. “We didn’t think they were going to take a chainsaw to a silk rug.”
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