In response to US President Donald Trump’s claim that federal employees were already being fired as a result of the ongoing government shutdown, the White House refutes this claim.
Republicans and Democrats failed to pass a budget breakthrough that would fund a number of government agencies and services as the government shutdown stretched into its sixth day.
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Democrats are trying to undo the tax legislation that Republicans have recently passed to make it less effective.
The Trump administration has threatened to fire some of the estimated 750, 000 federal workers who have been affected by the shutdown, a practice that both parties have practiced before, with furlough and blame on the other for the impasse.
Trump gave the impression that those layoffs were “taking place right now” on Sunday. He attributed the firings to Democrats.
However, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Trump was referring to the “hundreds of thousands of federal employees who have been furloughed” and not yet fired in the midst of the shutdown on Monday.
The Office of Management and Budget is still working with organizations on who, regrettably, will be laid off if this shutdown continues, she continued.
Legislators said there had been little progress because hundreds of thousands of public sector employees’ salaries were scheduled to be withheld starting on Friday.
Late on Monday, a further round of unpopular votes to fund the government were scheduled for the US Senate.
Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson warned opposition members to attend Congress until the Democrats step up. He claimed that the opposing party had the power to “stop the madness” and that reporters should stop asking him about negotiations on Monday.
Nothing can be negotiated between us. Johnson cited a funding bill that the chamber passed as a failure in the Senate as evidence that the House had done its job.
Republicans were still being portrayed as abandoned by Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
He claimed that House Republicans believe that taking a vacation is less important than protecting the health of regular Americans. We disagree a lot.
The funding bill is one of the Democrats’ few points of influence because Republicans have a hand in both the House and the Senate and have a slight majority in both chambers. Republicans currently have 53 seats in the Senate, but the legislation needs to pass with 60 votes.
According to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, they are using the position to push for the repeal of a tax law that was passed earlier this year and which eliminated 11 million Americans from access to healthcare, primarily through cuts to the Medicaid program for low-income families.
If the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance subsidies are not extended, another 24 million Americans will experience a doubled premium, according to Democrats, who predict that another 4 million Americans will lose coverage in the coming year.
Numerous services have been suspended as a result of the agency’s shortfall in funding since the shutdown started on October 1. There is a funding cliff for some. That includes the $ 8 billion Special Supplemental Nutrition Programme for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which may no longer have funding to provide vouchers to low-income families to purchase essential items like infant formula.
Federal employees who were deemed “essential” have continued to work until a resolution is reached, but they face paying no pay. According to advocacy groups, military personnel may start going missing their paychecks after mid-October.
The Environment Protection Agency, NASA, NASA, and the Education, Commerce, and Labor departments are among the organizations that are most affected by furloughs.
Since the shutdown’s start, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy reported on Monday that there has been “a slight increase in sick calls” coming from air traffic controllers in some places. He claimed that that could cause delays in air travel.
Then, he said, “you’ll see delays that result from that.” “We will reduce the flow in a way that’s safe for the American people” if there are more sick calls coming in.
Source: Aljazeera
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