The US federal government is set for its first shutdown in almost seven years after a last-minute attempt at a compromise failed.
Hundreds of thousands of government workers deemed not essential for protecting people or property could be furloughed or laid off when the shutdown – which looks all but inevitable – begins at midnight (5am UK time).
While critical services like social security payments and the postal service will keep operating, national parks and museums could be among the sectors that close completely.
It comes after rival Democrat and Republicans refused to budge in their stand-off over healthcare spending.
A Democrat-led proposal to keep the government funded went down by 53 votes to 47 in the Senate, before the Republicans’ one notched up 55 in favour – five short of the threshold needed to avert a shutdown.
Following the votes in Washington DC on Tuesday night, the White House’s budget office confirmed the shutdown would happen and said affected agencies “should now execute their plans”.
It blamed the Democrats, describing their position as “untenable”. The opposition party wants to reverse cuts to the government’s health insurance programme, Medicaid, which were passed earlier this summer.
Senate majority leader John Thune, a Republican, accused the Democrats of taking federal workers “hostage”.
His Democrat counterpart, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, said the Republicans’ funding package “does absolutely nothing to solve the biggest health care crisis in America”.
President Donald Trump was defiant ahead of the votes, and warned he could make “irreversible” cuts “that are bad” for the Democrats if the shutdown went ahead.
He threatened to cut “vast numbers of people out” and “programmes that they (the Democrats) like”.
“We’ll be laying off a lot of people,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.
Tens of thousands of government employees have already been laid off this year, driven by the “DOGE” initiative that was spearheaded by Elon Musk upon Mr Trump’s return to the White House.
Donald Trump spoke in the Oval Office ahead of the shutdown. Pic: Reuters
The last shutdown was in Mr Trump’s first term, from December 2018 to January 2019, when he demanded money for his US-Mexico border wall. At 35 days, it was the longest on record.
Mr Thune has expressed hope the latest shutdown will come to a much quicker conclusion, telling reporters: “We can reopen tomorrow – all it takes is a handful of Democrats to join Republicans to pass the clean, nonpartisan funding bill that’s in front of us.”
Before this week, the government had shut down 15 times since 1981. Most only last a few days.
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