WASHINGTON — The federal government has shutdown at the stroke of midnight Friday.
That has halted all but the most essential operations and marred the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump's inauguration in a striking display of Washington dysfunction.
Last-minute negotiations crumbled as Senate Democrats blocked a four-week stopgap extension in a late-night vote, causing the fourth government shutdown in a quarter century.
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Behind the scenes, however, leading Republicans and Democrats were trying to work out a compromise to avert a lengthy shutdown.
Congress scheduled an unusual Saturday session to begin considering a three-week version of the short-term spending measure.
U.S. Senator David Perdue (R-GA) made the following statement after Senate Democrats voted to shut down the federal government:
<br/> <br/> "This Schumer Shutdown is absolutely ridiculous. It is totally irresponsible for the Democrats to use government funding as a bargaining chip. Democrats have created a false deadline by trying to tie illegal immigration to government funding. As I've consistently said, these are two totally different issues and should be dealt with separately. Ever since I was sworn into the United States Senate, I have been talking about the total collapse of the budgeting process. Only four times in the past 43 years has this budget process actually funded the federal government. These repeated failures have manifested into a pattern of short-term funding patches, continuing resolutions, that hamstring our military. This short-term mentality in Washington has got to stop. When Congress fails to complete its budget, the best outcome is that six or eight people determine how to spend a trillion dollars of discretionary spending. Clearly, Congress' funding mechanism does not work and will never work. We are doomed to this cycle of fiscal irresponsibility until Congress reworks this budget process to successfully meet its Constitutional responsibility of funding the federal government."<br/>
U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., also issued a statement after Senate Democrats blocked legislation to fund the government:
"It's time to stop the theatrics and get to the business of governing. <br/> <br/> "For too long, we have been kicking the can down the road on an operating budget for our government. A continuing resolution is not the path I would choose for good governing. Now, we can't even put aside partisan differences and agree to move forward on a continuing resolution under which we all agree on the big underlying priorities. We can't even agree to extend the Children's Health Insurance Program for six years so that low-income kids and their families can have access to the health care they need.<br/> <br/> "We should immediately be funding children's health care, our men and women in uniform, our veterans and our seniors as well as other critical functions of the government and not playing political games with our country and our citizens. Shutting down the government is the wrong solution and always causes bigger problems in the end." <br/>
Associated Press
