“The shutdown hasn’t affected payrolls yet but soon will start to do so. Those who work in the government won’t get paid and contractors who rely upon public funding will see their money stop,” Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) — The U.S. federal government’s shutdown entered its second week on Wednesday, with no end on the horizon as the Senate was unable to reach an agreement to reopen it.
On the day, two bills to fund the government — one from Democrats and the other from Republicans — failed to pass for the sixth time.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, the top Republican in the lower chamber, said that Senate Democrats should back the GOP stopgap measure to reopen the government.
The two parties continued to trade blame for the impasse.
“Washington Democrats voted for this government shutdown — and it’s families, workers, and small businesses who are being forced to pay the price,” Johnson said Wednesday on X.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the upper chamber, said on X that “The government is shut down because Trump and the Republicans are hellbent on taking health care away” from Americans, and that Republicans “won’t even come to the table to talk to us about it.”
Top Republicans are standing firm that there is nothing to negotiate on health care before reopening the government.
Roughly 750,000 federal workers are expected to be furloughed during this shutdown, according to an analysis by Congressional Budget Office last week.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to terminate the employment of federal workers and cut programs if the shutdown continues. He said Tuesday that some furloughed federal employees may not receive back pay once the government reopens.
“I would say it depends on who we’re talking about. I can tell you this, the Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy, but it really depends on who you’re talking about,” Trump said at the White House Oval Office while meeting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
“But for the most part, we’re going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way,” Trump said.
The shutdown has led to flight delays, as essential employees such as air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers are working without pay. That has led to staff shortages.
One of the core hurdles between the two political parties is a dispute over health care.
Democrats are calling for strengthened healthcare benefits, including extending the enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that are set to expire at the end of the year, and restoring ACA coverage for certain immigrants with lawful status.
Republicans maintain that Democrats refuse to vote on a funding bill unless it includes what the GOP refers to as “free health care for illegals,” or those living in the United States illegally. Democrats have repeatedly called the statement that they are trying to provide healthcare to “undocumented immigrants” a lie.
“The shutdown hasn’t affected payrolls yet but soon will start to do so. Those who work in the government won’t get paid and contractors who rely upon public funding will see their money stop,” Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua.
“The longer it wears on, the more serious the fiscal ramifications,” West said. “Neither side appears close to caving at this point. Each party believes it is doing well, so they have little incentive to compromise.”
Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told Xinhua: “If workers in various agencies look for other jobs after going unpaid for long periods of time, that could be a big deal.”
“There was a concern about that with air traffic controllers in the last shutdown. Many agencies, like Social Security and the Internal Revenue Service are already seriously understaffed. If more people leave, they will have a hard time providing services,” Baker said.
Some analysts believe that both parties could benefit politically from the deadlock.
“Democrats benefit because this is a high-profile example of them using what little leverage they have against the Trump administration.” Christopher Galdieri, a political science professor at Saint Anselm College in the northeastern state of New Hampshire, told Xinhua.
“Trump has been using this to continue his criticisms of Democrats, and the agencies and departments that are core to his deportation agenda are able to function despite the shutdown, so the shutdown doesn’t hurt the White House in terms of its immediate policy goals,” Galdieri said.
“So, as with the Democrats, I don’t think there’s a ton of urgency to reopen the government among Republicans, either. So resolving this could take a longer time than it has in the past,” he said.■
