A U.S. government shutdown took effect from midnight, Tuesday, after an eleventh-hour Republican funding bill failed to gain enough votes in the Senate.
Government agencies will now have to discontinue all but essential activities, heralding disruptions in several services across the country, ranging from air traffic control to disaster relief.
A Republican bill that aimed to extend funding for seven weeks failed in a 55 to 45 vote, having required at least 60 votes to pass. This was the second Senate vote on the bill after it failed to pass in mid-September.
The bill was overwhelmingly opposed by the Democrats, with only Senators John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, and Angus King of Maine (an independent who is allied with the Democrats) voting in favor of the bill.
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was the sole Republican dissenter.
Friday’s upcoming nonfarm payrolls report is also expected to be delayed because of the shutdown.
A Democrat-backed spending bill was rejected by the Senate earlier on Tuesday. The Republican-backed bill was approved by the House of Representatives in September, but failed to make headway in the Senate.
The political impasse is centered around disagreements over spending on healthcare and insurance. Democrats have repeatedly called for including healthcare subsidies in a spending bill, while Republicans have argued that the issue should be discussed separately, and later.
U.S. President Donald Trump, before Tuesday’s vote, threatened to fire more federal workers if the government shut down.
Trump, along with the Republicans, largely blamed the shutdown on the Democratic party. Democrat leaders, on the other hand, said the Republicans were to blame, and that millions of Americans faced higher healthcare costs in the coming months.
It remained unclear just how long the shutdown will last. Congress has shut down the government 15 times since 1981.
The last shutdown occurred during Trump’s first term– 35 days between late-2018 and early-2019- with the Congressional Budget Office estimating an impact of $11 billion to gross domestic product. The 2018-2019 shutdown was the longest ever in U.S. history, and had affected about 800,000 federal workers.
Senate Republican leader John Thune said the body will vote on the House-approved spending bill later in the week.
Source :
https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/gop-funding-bill-fails-in-senate-us-government-shutdown-imminent-4264875
