US shutdown may last past Christmas

Bloomberg

The US government shutdown has entered a second day. It’s likely to last at least until late in the week, and maybe into January, as the White House and Democrats remain at an impasse over President Donald Trump’s demand for billions of dollars in border wall funding.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would adjourn for regular business until December 27. Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, warned that the shutdown may not be resolved until early January, when her party takes control of the chamber.
Vice President Mike Pence returned to the US Capitol to make an offer to the chamber’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York. But after the meeting, a spokesman for Schumer said the two sides were far from an agreement.
“We’re still talking” Pence said leaving Schumer’s office.
Both sides spent Saturday dug into their positions over the terms of reopening the nine government departments whose funding expired after Friday night.
“If you want to open the government, you must abandon the wall,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. He described the wall as a “bone to the hard right.”
A senior Trump administration official told reporters on a conference call that Democrats must accept physical barriers on the border as part of any deal.
Trump would be willing to negotiate the type of barrier and restrictions on where construction could occur, the official said.
“I won an election, said to be one of the greatest of all time, based on getting out of endless & costly foreign wars & also based on Strong Borders which will keep our Country safe,” Trump tweeted. “We fight for the borders of other countries, but we won’t fight for the borders of our own!”
Trump earlier in the week scuttled an agreement that would have kept the government open through February 8 after coming under heavy criticism from conservative talk show hosts and some allies in the House because the measure didn’t include the $5 billion he wanted for the wall.
Ending the shutdown — which affects nine of 15 federal departments, dozens of agencies and hundreds of thousands of workers — would also require the support of Pelosi, who’s in line to become speaker on January 3.
“Until President Trump can publicly commit to a bipartisan resolution, there will be no agreement before January when the new House Democratic Majority will swiftly pass legislation to re-open government,” the California lawmaker said in a letter to fellow Democrats.
And if a deal isn’t done before January 3, when Democrats take control of the House, negotiations may become more difficult for Trump.