The US government shutdown has entered its 36th day, making it the longest US government shutdown.
The shutdown, which began on October 1, was caused by Congress’ inability to approve a new funding deal. It has left government employees without paychecks and millions of Americans without basic services.
Democrats and Republicans have been at a stalemate for weeks with no signs of reaching a settlement — although some glimmers of hope are beginning to emerge.
Majority Leader John Thune, the Senate’s top Republican, said his “gut” told him a potential breakthrough could be on the horizon.
“I think based on my hunch about how these things work, I think we’re approaching a cliff out of here,” Thune said.
The previous record government shutdown occurred during Donald Trump’s first term as president and lasted 35 days before ending in 2019.
In the weeks since the start of this lockdown, the effects on Americans’ daily lives have worsened.
Thousands of federal workers have already lost pay, and there are growing concerns about increased impacts on air travel across the United States as air traffic controllers and airport employees work without pay.
On Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told Fox News that some areas of US airspace may have to be closed if the government shutdown continues. About 13,000 air traffic controllers, who are government employees, are working without pay due to the closure.
“If you take us a week from today, Democrats, you’re going to see total chaos,” Duffy said. “You’ll see mass flight delays. You’ll see mass cancellations, and you may see us closing certain parts of the airspace, because we can’t manage it because we don’t have air traffic controllers.”
The effects have also been felt by low-income Americans who depend on government services.
One in eight people in the United States depends on food assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), but only a portion of that assistance is being paid out this month because funding has expired.
The Trump administration had initially said that Snap funds would not be distributed in November, but a US court ordered the emergency funds to be used to give people some help.
Since Monday’s ruling, Trump has indicated he may not listen to the judges.
“[Snap benefits] “It will only be given when the radical left Democrats open the government, which they can easily do, and not before,” Trump said on the Truth Social website. However, the White House insisted that the administration would follow the court order.
US senators have voted on the same short-term funding bill to reopen the government more than a dozen times without luck. They tried again on Tuesday to no avail.
This proposal was approved in the House of Representatives in September.
Democrats have so far refused to support the short-term measure on government funding unless Republicans agree to extend health care subsidies for low-income Americans. Republicans have resisted, accusing Democrats of holding the government hostage to irrelevant policy priorities.
If a compromise is reached, Thune said, both chambers would have to pass the new legislation, because the initial bill passed by the House only keeps the government funded and running until Nov. 21 — a date that is rapidly approaching and no longer makes sense.
“If we don’t start to see some progress or some evidence of that by at least the middle of this week, it’s hard to see how we’re going to get anything done by the end of the week,” Thune told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. “And I think that would be the goal here, is to try to get something that we can send back to the House that will open up the government.”
In recent days, there have been signs that some Democrats and moderate Republicans are eager to negotiate and find a deal before Thanksgiving on November 27.
