Shutdown breaks record, govt employees struggle
Trump eclipses Clinton’s three-week spell in 1995-96
WASHINGTON: Hours after the partial shutdown of the US government entered the 22nd day on Saturday - becoming the longest in the country’s history - accounts of distressed employees dipping into savings, protesting, and selling household goods on Facebook and Craiglist were being reported from all over the US.
The shutdown has now broken the previous record of 21 days of continuous shutdown in 1995-96, during the first term of president Bill Clinton, who had clashed with Congress, which wanted to cut funding for Medicare and Medicaid.
One government employee in Washington put his 2012 Dodge Avenger car up for sale on Craiglist. saying, “Need to pay upcoming bills due to furlough shutdown.”
An employee in Virginia is selling a TV. “It works perfectly and is in good condition. Reduced to $400, I am part of the shutdown and need funds to survive.”
An estimated 800,000 government employees are either on leave without pay or are working without pay, and that includes those working at the US state department. And that would comprise employees in the US and diplomats abroad, including ambassadors.
Sectors affected include treasury, homeland security, judiciary (including FBI personnel), interior and transportation (air traffic controllers and security). They missed their first paycheck of the shutdown period on Friday.
Talks to resolve the shutdown have been stalemated since US President Donald Trump ended the last round with a “bye-bye”.
“Democrats should come back to Washington and work to end the Shutdown, while at the same time, ending the horrible humanitarian crisis at our Southern Border, I am in the White House waiting for you!” he wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
Lawmakers have left for the weekend and talks were not expected to resume, if they will at all, only next week. But Democrats are getting ready as Trump has stated several times that he could declare a “national emergency” and fund the Us-mexico border wall from unspent defence money.
Trump has sought $5.7 billion to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico - which he is now calling a “steel barrier”.
Democrats won’t give him that amount, but they are willing to resume talks only if he allows the reopening of the government.