The impasse of the Senate sends an American closure in the second week

The American senators have for the fourth time for having successfully completed the expenditure proposals to reopen the federal government, extending the current closure next week.

Two distinct expenditure proposals – one of the Democrats and one of the Republicans – have not reached the threshold of 60 votes required.

On Friday, the White House said that the White House said that it would remain with the “unnamed task” of mass layoffs so that the essential government services work if the closure continues, that the press secretary Karoline Leavitt described as “tax mental health”.

The scope of these potential layoffs remains unclear, but the White House had discussions with the management and budget office, or OMB.

Republican and democratic legislators have dug in their heels on the main point of disagreement: health care. Democrats hoped to capitalize on the dead end to guarantee subsidies to health insurance for low -income people do not expose and do not overturn the Trump administration cuts on the Medicaid health program.

The Republicans, for their part, have repeatedly accused the Democrats of closing the government in order to provide health care to undocumented immigrants – an accusation that Democratic leaders have denied.

A total of 54 senators voted in favor of a proposal led by the Republicans to finance the government, with 44 against and two not voting.

A separate proposal led by the Democrats also failed, with 45 vote in favor and 52 against.

The two parties continued to blame the other for the closure, with few signs of progress in the negotiations.

“We can vote and vote and vote,” said Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley at the BBC. “But it’s five people.”

During a press conference at the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the Democrats of keeping Americans “hostage on their requests”.

“The economic consequences of this closure are accumulating every day,” she added, noting that $ 15 billion (11.1 billion pounds sterling) in GDP could be lost each week as unemployment increases.

Officials of the White House have repeatedly promised to dismiss federal workers if the closure continues, and earlier this week, President Donald Trump posted that he would meet Russell Vought, who directs the OMB, to examine “which of the many democratic agencies” which should be cut.

The White House has provided no scope or chronology for any dismissal or potential cut to agencies. Leavitt said most of these cuts come from agencies that “do not align with the values ​​of this administration to put our country first”.

As part of the federal government’s response to the closure, Vought announced on Friday the suspension of $ 2.1 billion in federal infrastructure funding for Chicago, in addition to the previous freezing of $ 18 billion in infrastructure expenditure in New York and the cancellation of approximately $ 8 billion in federal energy projects.

In the Senate, the chief of the minority Chuck Schumer said that the Democrats fight the problem of health care because “we know that the Americans wanted it”.

“And we know that many of my republican colleagues want it too,” he said. “But the fact of not acting would be devastating, and the Republicans know it.”

Some Democrats – including the Connecticut Senator, Richard Bluementhal and the Pennsylvania senator, John Fetterman – said they wanted to hear the president directly on the current dead end.

Citing a bill on bipartite borders that the president finally rejected last year, they said that they feared that any negotiation with the Senate Republicans were ultimately contradicted by Trump.

The first surveys suggested that the Americans are deeply divided during the closure, with a Washington Post survey on October 1, noting that 47% of American adults blame the Republicans, against 30% who blame the Democrats.

23% additional said they were not sure.

(With additional CAI PIGLIUCCI reports on Capitol Hill)