New York: Plunged into a government shutdown, the US is confronting a fresh cycle of uncertainty after President Donald Trump and Congress failed to strike an agreement to keep government programmes and services running by Wednesday's deadline.
Roughly 7,50,000 federal workers are expected to be furloughed, some potentially fired by the Trump administration. Many offices will be shuttered, perhaps permanently, as Trump vows to “do things that are irreversible, that are bad” as retribution, PTI reported.
The shutdown move happened after Senate Democrats blocked the Republican majority’s legislation aimed at funding the government through 21 November, The Guardian reported.
On the other hand Republicans joined to stop what the report said a ‘separate Democratic-backed measure’ meant to extend ‘healthcare benefits and other priorities’.
Senate majority leader John Thune reportedly said after the vote: ‘Far-left interest groups and far-left Democrat members wanted to show down with the president, and so Senate Democrats have sacrificed the American people to Democrats’ partisan interests.’
Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, alleged that ‘Republicans are plunging America into a shutdown, rejecting bipartisan talks, pushing a partisan bill and risking America’s healthcare’.
Chuck Schumer vehemently responded after Republicans refusing to negotiate with Democrats on its demands on ‘an extension of tax credits for Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans’ alongside revoking of cuts made to ‘the Medicaid health insurance program for poor and disabled Americans’.
In the face government shut down, President Trump threatened to fire federal workers en masse saying ‘When you shut it down, you have to do layoffs, so we’d be laying off a lot of people’.
The White House office of management and budget in a letter, addressed to the heads of federal offices and agencies, blamed ‘Democrats insane policy demands’ as reason for ‘inevitable’ shutdown.
‘It is unclear how long Democrats will maintain their untenable posture, making the duration of the shutdown difficult to predict,’ the letter read.