The US government officially shut down early Wednesday when Congress and President Donald Trump could not sort out a rancorous budget conflict. It is the 15th federal funding freeze in the country since 1981 and the first one after the 35-day shutdown record of 2018-2019. At 12:01 a.m., federal agencies started shutting down after the Senate Democrats voted to block a Republican stopgap bill that would have made government funding last until November 21.
The Republican action did not pass due to the insistence by the Democrats that it should also contain an extension of the health-care subsidies and a reduction in the planned Medicaid cuts, which the Republican leadership was not willing to accommodate. It is the impasse that puts up to 750,000 federal employees at risk of furlough, costing its estimated $400 million a day. Unless they are paid, essential workers, such as troops, will remain at work. It is believed that the shutdown will interfere with the publication of major economic reports, including the jobs figures on Friday, cripple air travel, halt scientific studies and disrupt social services throughout the country.
On Tuesday, President Trump further heightened the tension by threatening to make irreversible reductions of programs and federal positions, as part of his larger goal of cutting the federal workforce by about 300,000 before the year ends, as a result of the shutdown. Trump said a lot of good can come out of shutdowns, which would mean that many of the affected would be democrats.
Democratic Senate majority whip Chuck Schumer charged Republicans with bullying his party into accepting a scaled-down funding bill, saying, “All they need to do is attempt to bully us. And they are not going to accomplish it. The republicans replied that the democrats were ransoming the government on health-care provisions.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune called the unsuccessful measure a nonpartisan one, and there was no substantive basis for a shutdown but political posturing.
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