US faces first government shutdown in nearly 7 years

The US government shut down for the first time in nearly seven years

The US government shut down for the first time in nearly seven years, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs in one of the biggest political crises to hit Washington during President Donald Trump’s second term.

The White House Office of Management and Budget ordered federal agencies to begin implementing their contingency plans, leading to a partial government shutdown that kept only essential functions running. The move is set to disrupt the work of hundreds of thousands of Americans and destabilize many public services.

The shutdown began shortly after midnight on Tuesday in Washington, after Republicans and Democrats failed to reach an agreement on funding the federal government for the new fiscal year.

On Tuesday evening, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate rejected a series of competing funding proposals that could have averted the shutdown. The deadlock is expected to result in the furlough of about 750,000 federal employees and cost the economy billions of dollars in lost output.

The shutdown will also make it harder for policymakers and investors to assess the strength of the economy, as it delays the release of key data, including the closely watched September jobs report, which was scheduled for release on Friday.

With the two parties deadlocked over healthcare funding, the shutdown and its economic fallout could drag on.

The federal government has faced 14 shutdowns or funding gaps since 1980. The longest began in late 2018, when the government partially closed for nearly five weeks amid a dispute over funding for the border wall proposed by Trump during his first term.