The U.S. federal government officially shut down early Wednesday (Oct. 1) after lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on a funding bill, the latest casualty of partisan deadlock in Washington.
The shutdown has forced hundreds of thousands of federal employees to work without pay or take unpaid leave, while many government services face disruption.
Efforts are underway in the Capitol to reopen the government, but the outlook remains uncertain as Republicans and Democrats continue to trade blame over who is responsible for the impasse.
WHY IS THE SHUTDOWN HAPPENING?
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday failed to approve a short-term spending bill, following the two bills' failure to pass on Tuesday night, which led to the shutdown.
Healthcare benefits remain a key sticking point in the latest negotiations, with Democrats advocating stronger healthcare funding, while Republicans accuse them of seeking to provide free healthcare to undocumented immigrants.
"(Democratic congresswoman) Maxine Waters admitted that she is demanding Healthcare for Illegal Aliens, and it's going to be Top of the Line, taking American Taxpayers' Healthcare away from them!" U.S. President Donald Trump said in a social media post.
"Republicans shut down the government because they can't be bothered to protect health care for Americans across this country," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday on X.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN on Wednesday that Democrats are willing to reach a bipartisan agreement to reopen the government, while blaming Republicans for a "health care crisis that is devastating every day Americans all across the country."
HOW WILL THE SHUTDOWN IMPACT AMERICANS?
Following the government shutdown, those functions essential to the protection of lives and property will remain open, while services such as National Parks, air traffic, and health care, among others, will be partially interrupted or affected.
The government shutdown will also hit the domestic economy. The previous shutdown, which lasted 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019, caused an unrecoverable 3 billion-U.S. dollar hit to economic growth, with some private businesses permanently losing income, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate.
What makes this shutdown different from previous ones is that the Trump administration has signaled its willingness to use it as an opportunity to cut government jobs and programs that do not align with Trump's priorities, rather than simply furlough employees or require them to work without pay.
"Let's be honest, if this thing drags on for another few days, or, God forbid, another few weeks, we are going to have to lay people off," U.S. Vice President JD Vance told reporters at a White House press briefing on Wednesday.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at the briefing that she expected layoffs to happen "very soon."
The indication has raised concerns over job security for a workforce strained by budget cuts and layoffs, Bloomberg reported.
WHAT CAUSED FREQUENT SHUTDOWNS?
The U.S. government has suffered 15 shutdowns since 1980, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank.
Frequent shutdowns stem from deep-rooted partisan gridlock over federal spending. Triggered by Democrats' opposition to Trump's proposed funding for the U.S.-Mexico border wall, the previous 35-day shutdown from 2018 to 2019, the longest in U.S. history, forced some 800,000 federal employees to work without pay or take unpaid leave.
Hours before entering the latest shutdown on Wednesday midnight, the U.S. Senate failed to pass a short-term spending bill that would have temporarily kept the government running, as Republicans and Democrats have been trading blame recently, accusing each other of forcing the government into a shutdown.
"The Democrats want to shut it down. So when you shut it down, you have to do layoffs. So we'd be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected. And they're going to be Democrats," Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
"The White House simply wants to win the confrontation (with the Democrats). It may be that they will lose in terms of public opinion if they proceed to mass firings," Clay Ramsay, a researcher at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, told Xinhua.
(Source: Xinhua)
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