The United States of America’s Government has shut down after the Republican and the Democrats Senators failed to reach a compromise to pass a spending bill before the Federal Government ran out of money and closed its doors.
Congress also failed to reach an agreement to a limit on how much it could spend on military and domestic programmes in order to keep the Government open.
Essential services and military activity will continue but many public sector workers will be sent home without wages and even serving soldiers will not be paid until a deal is reached to reopen the US Government.
A move to avert the shutdown had appeared likely earlier Friday, when Trump seemed to be close to an agreement with Democratic Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, on a measure to prevent the expulsion of undocumented migrants who arrived in the country as children.
A temporary spending bill was passed in the House of Representatives on Thursday night with 230 to 197, but a concurrent 60 votes were required in the Senate to advance a short-term spending bill to fund the Government and avoid a shutdown.
Sarah Sanders, Trump’s spokeswoman had said there would be no immigration agreement until Congress agrees to resume normal Government spending.
“Senate Democrats own the Schumer Shutdown.
“Tonight, they put politics above our national security, military families, vulnerable children, and our country’s ability to serve all Americans.”
In defence, Schumer said “The overwhelming number in our caucus have said they don’t like this deal and they believe if we kick the can down the road this time we’ll be back where we started from next time. So there’s very, very strong support not to go along with their deal.”
The shutdown is also denting the one year anniversary of Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States.
What is A Government Shutdown
A Government Shutdown occurs when the Congress and the Government fail to pass appropriations bill which legislates Government spending and funding of operations.
When shutdown happens, Federal Government employees would be forced to shut down non-essential services while essential staff at top level agencies would continue working but employees are not sure when they would get their salaries.
It usually takes days, weeks until agreement is reached by both parties, and it also has the effect of disruption to Government services and increased tcost to the government due to lost labour.
This is not the first time the Government of the U.S had shut down, as it has previously done so 18 times before now.
The last was in October 2013, during the Barack Obama led administration when neither legislation appropriating funds for fiscal year 2014 nor a continuing resolution for the interim authorization of appropriations for fiscal year 2014 was enacted in time.
Republicans had pressured the White House into agreeing to lower levels of discretionary spending, and conservatives in the House led by Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA) demanded that any funding bill delay implementation of Obamacare by a year.
It was set to roll out the following year, and conservatives, were desperate to stop it before it gained beneficiaries who could defend it politically.
Enough House conservatives got on board with the plan to make it impossible to pass a continuing resolution, and the government shut down.
It lasted for 16 days and 850,000 Federal workers were furloughed and another 1.3 million were required to report to work without known payment dates.
