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Exactly one year into Trump presidency, US govt shuts down

Author
AAP,
Publish Date
Sat, 20 Jan 2018, 6:44PM
(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

Exactly one year into Trump presidency, US govt shuts down

Author
AAP,
Publish Date
Sat, 20 Jan 2018, 6:44PM

The US federal government has officially run out of funding at midnight on Saturday, after the Senate failed to pass a short-term spending bill to avert a shutdown.

A late Friday evening Senate vote on a House funding bill failed to garner 60 votes needed. But the vote was held open for more than two hours and not made final, as senators of both parties were huddled in feverish talks to try to strike a deal.

If the shutdown lasts beyond the weekend, hundreds of thousands of government employees may be furloughed and agencies closed.

Earlier in the day, Senator Lindsey Graham floated the idea of a three-week spending bill to February 8, which is just the type of temporary solution that he has opposed.

But he said that "we are inside the 10-yard line" on issues like providing protection for Dreamers, military spending and children's health insurance funding.
But Democrats, coming out of their own caucus meeting, appeared to reject that as a solution. Graham ultimately sided with the Democrats in voting against the House funding bill.

With just over two hours to the deadline, President Donald Trump sent out a tweet that a shutdown was the way things were heading.

"Not looking good for our great Military or Safety & Security on the very dangerous Southern Border," he wrote.

"Dems want a Shutdown in order to help diminish the great success of the Tax Cuts, and what they are doing for our booming economy."

The shutdown at midnight would coincide with the first anniversary of Trump's inauguration, and he cancelled a plans to travel to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, where he was to attend a celebration on Saturday evening.

It was the first government shutdown while one party controlled the White House and two chambers of Congress.

Democrats have been adamant about rejecting a funding deal that does not address the Dreamers, the undocumented immigrants who came to the United States when they were children.

They blame not just congressional Republican leadership, but Trump for rejecting a bipartisan immigration deal after initially indicating that he would be receptive to it.

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