Washington, Sep 30: A partisan standoff over heath care and spending is threatening to trigger the first US government shutdown in almost seven years, with Democrats and Republicans in Congress unable to find agreement even as thousands of federal workers stand to be furloughed or permanently laid off.
The government will shut down at 12:01 am Wednesday if the Senate does not pass a House measure that would extend federal funding for seven weeks while lawmakers finish their work on annual spending bills.
Senate Democrats say they won’t vote for it unless Republicans include an extension of expiring health care benefits, among other demands, while President Donald Trump and Republicans are refusing to negotiate at all, arguing that it is a stripped down, “clean” bill that should be noncontroversial. It was unclear, so far, if either side would blink before the deadline.
“It’s now in the president’s hands,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Monday after a meeting with Trump at the White House that yielded little apparent progress. “He can avoid the shutdown if he gets the Republican leaders to go along with what we want.” Vice President JD Vance, who was also in the meeting, said afterward, “I think we’re headed into a shutdown, because the Democrats won’t do the right thing.” (AP)
