US lawmakers headed home for Christmas leaving the government partially shut for a third day Monday in an impasse over President Donald Trump’s demand for border wall funding, a standoff which the White House budget director said may continue until a new Congress takes over in January.
The shutdown adds to uncertainties from Washington which have spooked global stock markets, and capped a tumultuous week in which Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned over Trump’s foreign policies.
More than 400,000 federal employees are reporting to their jobs on Monday but won’t get their salaries, while nearly 400,000 others “will be locked out of work with no pay,” the American Federation of Government Employees union said.
“No private business or company would be permitted to impose on or disrupt the lives of their employees in such a manner,” the Federation said in letters to the Senate and House of Representatives.
About three-quarters of the government, including the military, is fully funded through September 2019 but the shutdown forced several other major agencies to cease operations from Saturday.
A deal to end the funding shortfall appears a distant prospect as Congress adjourned on the weekend for Christmas.
“It’s very possible that this shutdown will go beyond the 28th and into the new Congress” which takes its seat in early January, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said.
But while trying to pin the blame on opposition Democrats, Mulvaney, speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” acknowledged that Trump’s adamant stance on the wall played a role.
“This is what Washington looks like when you have a president who refuses to sort of go along to get along,” Mulvaney said.
It is the third government shutdown of the year, even though Trump’s Republican Party still controls both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but it comes as even Trump’s closest Republican allies begin to question some of his policy stances.
Democrats will take control of the House on January 3, giving them greater leverage in the shutdown talks.
Source: AFP
