Sawt Falasteen - US careens toward government shutdown as both parties dig in

A last-gasp meeting at the White House on Monday yielded no breakthrough on the issue, with top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer saying afterward that "large differences" remained between both sides.

His party, in the minority in both chambers of Congress, is seeking to flex its rare leverage over the federal government, eight months into Donald Trump's barnstorming second presidency that has seen entire government agencies dismantled.

Rules in the 100-member Senate require government funding bills to receive 60 votes -- seven more than the Republicans currently control.

Unless Congress passes a bill before midnight to fund federal operations, the government will partially close up shop -- and plunge Washington into a new round of political crisis.

A shutdown would see nonessential operations grind to a halt, leaving hundreds of thousands of civil servants temporarily without pay, and payment of many social safety-net benefits disrupted.

The White House also upped the ante last week by ordering government agencies to prepare for layoffs that would go beyond the usual practice of temporary furloughs during a shutdown.

The move would add to the pain of government workers after large-scale firings orchestrated by tycoon Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year.

Government shutdowns are deeply unpopular in the United States, and Democrats and Republicans alike try to avoid the scenario -- while blaming the other camp should a closure arise.

"This is purely and simply hostage-taking on behalf of the Democrats," Senate Republican leader John Thune said Monday of Schumer's demands.

Republicans have proposed to extend current funding until late November, pending negotiations on a longer-term spending plan.

Democrats want to see hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare spending restored, particularly in the Obamacare health insurance program for low-income households, which the Trump administration plans to eliminate through its so-called "Big, Beautiful" domestic policy bill passed in July.

They also want to block Trump and Republicans from cutting approved funds later through the so-called "rescissions" process, as they did this summer. The process requires only a simple majority to pass.

- Gridlock -

"Ultimately he's the decision-maker," Schumer said of Trump. "And if he will accept some of the things we asked -- which we think the American people are for, on healthcare and on rescissions -- he can avoid a shutdown, but there are still large differences between us."

Vice President JD Vance meanwhile accused the Democrats of putting "a gun to the American people's head" with their funding demands.

"I think we're headed to a shutdown because the Democrats won't do the right thing," he said on Monday.

The House has already passed a short-term funding extension, and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has sought to force Senate Democrats' hands by not bringing his chamber back to Washington this week.

Johnson, speaking alongside Vance and Thune, accused Democrats on Monday of "trying to bring in extraneous issues" instead of accepting his chamber's "clean" proposal to extend funding.

"If the Democrats make the decision to shut the government down, the consequences are on them, and I think it's absolutely tragic," he said.

The gridlocked Congress regularly runs into deadlines to agree on spending plans.

In March, with the threat of a shutdown already looming, Republicans refused to engage in dialogue with Democrats over massive budget cuts and the layoffs of thousands of federal employees.

That time, 10 Senate Democrats, including Schumer, reluctantly voted for that Republican stopgap measure to avoid a shutdown. But their decision angered the party base, which is calling on Democratic leaders to stand up to Trump.

E.AbuRizq--SF-PST