MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US gov't shuts down again after seven years

“There are critical services that the Democrats have taken hostage,” Vance argued

The United States' federal government ended up in the first shutdown in seven years after Republicans and Democrats in the Senate failed to agree on a spending bill.

“Why are we in this position? We're in this position because Senate Democrats decided that they were going to shut down the government, despite the fact that the House voted to keep the government open,” Vice President -and Senate Speaker- JD Vance argued.

“It's actually not all Senate Democrats. To their great credit, a number of moderate Democrats voted with Republicans to keep the government open last night. Unfortunately, it was one faction of one branch of government, the far left faction of the Senate Democrats, who decided to shut down the People's Government,” he further explained.

“There are critical essential services that the people rely on that are going to suffer because of this. There are people who benefit from low-income food programs, families like mine, who benefited from those programs, who are going to see those programs disappear,” he went on. “There are critical services that the Democrats have taken hostage because they have a policy disagreement that they are open to work with us on, but they shouldn't be shutting the government down because of that policy disagreement.”

The deadline to approve government funding expired on Wednesday as both parties rejected each other's spending plans in back-to-back votes.

The core conflict was the Democrats' demand to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies (tax credits that make health insurance affordable for millions) that are set to expire at the end of the year. Democrats also want the reversal of recent Medicaid cuts.

The Republicans (GOP) voted against the Democratic plan and framed their own bill as a “clean,” non-partisan funding solution, maintaining that there was still time to negotiate on healthcare later this year.

On the other hand, the Democrats refused to back the GOP bill, claiming it would endanger Americans' healthcare.

As both sides keep blaming each other, federal agencies will partially suspend services, and many “non-excepted” employees will be furloughed (sent home without pay).

Essential services and programs relying on mandatory spending will generally continue. This includes the FBI, CIA, air traffic controllers, airport checkpoint agents, and the president's immigration crackdown. “Excepted” employees in these areas will work but not be paid until the shutdown ends.

The last government shutdown began on Dec. 22, 2018, and lasted 35 days. A vote to end the new shutdown hours after it began already failed on Wednesday.