WASHINGTON -- Congress effectively gave up on trying to reopen a quarter of the federal government until after the new year, as negotiations stalled Thursday among Republican and Democratic leaders.
The Senate convened briefly Thursday afternoon, on the sixth day of the shutdown, but then closed for legislative business until new lawmakers are sworn in Jan. 3.
Departing House Republicans informed lawmakers that there would be no votes today or Monday and no relief for thousands of federal workers either furloughed or working without pay. House Democrats, who assume control Thursday, are weighing three approaches to getting funds flowing, none of which would include money for President Donald Trump's proposed wall along the southwestern border.
Whichever path they choose, party leaders said they would vote promptly on Jan. 3, hoping to project the image of Democrats as a steadying hand in Washington and to raise the pressure on Trump and Republicans who control the Senate to end the standoff.
"If the Trump shutdown is not resolved by Jan. 3, then the Democratic-led House will put legislation on the floor to reopen the government and get to work for the American people," Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the incoming majority leader, said in a statement Thursday. "The president has not been a reliable negotiating partner and his positions change daily with his mood, but Democrats' commitment to keeping government open and operating on behalf of the public remains unchanged."
A spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said Democrats' likely plan is to put a bill that funds the government, without money for Trump's wall, on the floor Thursday.
Back from a brief trip to visit troops in Iraq and Germany, Trump appeared to dig in on his demand that Congress approve $5 billion in additional funds as a down payment on the border wall. In tweets Thursday, he accused Democrats of favoring permissive immigration laws and border security.
"This isn't about the Wall, everybody knows that a Wall will work perfectly (In Israel the Wall works 99.9%)," Trump wrote. "This is only about the Dems not letting Donald Trump & the Republicans have a win. They may have the 10 Senate votes, but we have the issue, Border Security. 2020!"
Trump said during his Iraq visit that the shutdown would last as long as it takes to get the funding he wants for the wall and additional border security measures. The president declined to say what level of funding he'd accept.
Trump on Thursday also tried to appeal to Democrats by saying the shutdown affects their supporters.
"Do the Dems realize that most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?" he said in a Twitter post.
The message contrasted with Trump's claim in an Oval Office appearance on Christmas morning that "many of those workers" had told him to continue to shut down the government "until you get the funding for the wall."
"These federal workers want the wall," Trump said at the time.
Trump's tweet prompted criticism from some Democrats who argued that federal workers are not the partisans the president has made them out to be.
"This is outrageous," Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said in a tweet. "Federal employees don't go to work wearing red or blue jerseys. They're public servants. And the President is treating them like poker chips at one of his failed casinos."
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., sounded a similar note, saying that federal employees affected by the shutdown "work for the FBI & TSA (not GOP or DNC)."
"They signed up to protect us & work for America regardless of party," she said in a tweet.
The White House on Thursday kept up its attacks on Democratic leaders.
"The only rational conclusion is that the Democrat party is openly choosing to keep our government closed to protect illegal immigrants rather than the American people," Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, wrote in a statement Thursday. "The president does not want the government to remain shut down, but he will not sign a proposal that does not first prioritize our country's safety and security."
About 25 percent of the federal government has been shut down since Saturday, with roughly 800,000 workers affected, including an estimated 350,000 who are on furlough at home without pay.
After a weekend and two holiday days for federal employees, Wednesday was the first regularly scheduled workday affected by the shutdown.
With no end in sight, the Office of Personnel Management sent out a Twitter post Thursday morning in which it shared advice and letter templates for federal workers to use in negotiating for deferred rent and payments to other creditors.
"As we discussed, I am a Federal employee who has recently been furloughed due to a lack of funding of my agency. Because of this, my income has been severely cut and I am unable to pay the entire cost of my rent, along with my other expenses," one of the sample letters reads. It also suggests the possibility of doing building chores in exchange for reduced payments.
Meanwhile, the planning for next week's Democratic takeover was almost all that went on in the Capitol on Thursday, even as the Senate reconvened for the first time since before Christmas. With negotiations between the White House and Senate Democrats going nowhere, the session lasted only four minutes.
The House did not even meet, and Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the majority whip, told House members not to expect votes for the rest of the year. When Democrats sent Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts to the House floor to attempt to force consideration of a short-term stopgap funding bill already passed in the Senate, Republicans would not recognize him.
Democrats say they are more than willing to approve substantial funding increases for security at the southern border, just not for the continuous physical barrier advocated by the president. Such a wall, they argue, is an ineffective and inefficient Band-Aid for a broader immigration system that is in disrepair.
Information for this article was contributed by Felicia Sonmez, Christopher Ingraham, Jeff Stein and Jenna Portnoy of The Washington Post; by Alyza Sebenius of Bloomberg News; by Juliet Linderman, Darlene Superville, Zeke Miller and Paul Davenport of The Associated Press; and by Nicholas Fandos of The New York Times.
RELATED ARTICLE
https://www.arkansa…">Army Corps remains on duty
A Section on 12/28/2018