US govt workers home without pay as shutdown drags on

WASHINGTON: Hundreds of thousands of US federal employees were forced to stay home without pay Monday after lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on ending a government shutdown before the start of the work week.

Although leaders of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party and the opposition Democrats said progress had been made in a weekend of talks, they pushed back a scheduled late-night Sunday vote on a stopgap funding measure to Monday at noon (1700 GMT).

Trump goaded Democrats from the sidelines, accusing them of placing non-citizens ahead of Americans, shutting down the government in the service of “their far left base.”“They don’t want to do it but are powerless,” he tweeted, referring to the Democratic leadership in Congress.

The impasse, the first of its kind since 2013, had already cast a huge shadow over the first anniversary of Trump’s inauguration as president on Saturday.After special weekend sessions of Congress which had seen bitter recriminations traded across the political aisle, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged in a speech to the chamber late Sunday to address Democrat concerns over key issues such as immigration reform. The Senate’s top Democrat Chuck Schumer responded by saying he was “happy to continue my discussion with the majority leader about reopening the government” but added that the parties were “yet to reach an agreement on a path forward.”

Hopes that the shutdown, which began at midnight Friday, could be limited to the weekend were raised Sunday when a bipartisan group huddled for hours trying to end the standoff, but they ultimately failed to reach a deal. On Monday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders accused the Democrats of “playing games.” “The president’s focus is making sure we get the government reopened. It’s outrageous that Democrats are holding our national security hostage,” she told ABC’s “Good Morning America” program.

Over the weekend, Trump had encouraged the Senate’s Republican leaders to invoke the “nuclear option” — a procedural maneuver to change the chamber’s rules to allow passage of a budget by a simple majority of 51 votes to end the shutdown.

But Senate leaders have been wary of such a move in the past, as it could come back to haunt them the next time Democrats hold a majority. At the heart of the dispute is the issue of undocumented immigration. Democrats have accused Republicans of poisoning chances of a deal and pandering to Trump’s populist base by refusing to back a program that protects an estimated 700,000 “Dreamers” — undocumented immigrants who arrived as children — from deportation.

Meanwhile, in a later move, US Democrats agreed to support a temporary funding bill to end a partial shutdown of the federal government, now in its third day, as a key vote began in the Senate. The Senate’s top Democrat Chuck Schumer told the chamber he had reached a deal with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — in exchange for a pledge to address Democrat concerns over hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the country as children.

Democrats had refused to vote for the temporary budget extension unless they secured guarantees on the future of the so-called “Dreamers,” who will be vulnerable to deportation when the DACA program protecting them expires in March.

“After several discussions, offers, counteroffers, the Republican leader and I have come to an arrangement,” Schumer said, moments before the key vote got underway.“We will vote today to reopen the government to continue negotiating a global agreement with the commitment that if an agreement isn’t reached by February the 8th, the Senate will immediately proceed to consideration of legislation dealing with DACA,” he said.