So now you're arguing that they're useless automatons.

No. Just that they have to follow the instructions they're given. That doesn't make you a "useless automaton" - it just means that you're following your bosses' directions. They're in charge of setting policy and priorities, not you. If they decide that they have the power to "pause" spending that Congress has authorized, and instruct you to do it (on pain of being informed on and fired if you don't), they you are supposed to do what they tell you to do. You don't get to decide those policy choices - you follow instructions.

This is what Trump wanted - that the federal bureaucracy follow the instructions of his Administration, rather than second guessing them.

OMB ordered a global freeze. They carved out an exception for money going to individual beneficiaries, but that's it - and Medicaid doesn't go to individual beneficiaries. No one was authorized to apply that order in any way other than what it said on the page, and they all did what they were supposed to do - flag it as an issue, raise the alarm that the words on the page would require them to do this, answer questions from state and local governments by providing the information that OMB gave them rather than making something up on their own, and hoping the Administration clarified what the hell was going on.

If the Press Secretary wasn't able to answer the question "Does this apply to Medicaid" with a response of "Of course it doesn't apply to Medicaid" - instead of "I have to check" - then you know the other federal employees would have to answer the same way. Surely you're not saying she's a useless automaton, but she made the same call.

This is a screw up at the top. That's why they pulled it.