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Showing little sense of urgency over the shutdown, now in its
sixth day, the Senate and the House of Representatives did
nothing to restore funding for the roughly 20 percent of the
government affected.
The shutdown was on track to continue into next week and
possibly drag on well into January.
The shutdown was triggered by Republican President Donald
Trump's demand, largely opposed by Democrats and some lawmakers
within his own party, that U.S. taxpayers provide $5 billion for
a wall he wants to build along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump wants the money to be included in spending measures that
Congress must pass to restore funding to several government
agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security,
Justice, Agriculture and Commerce.
On Saturday, when their existing funding expired, those agencies
shut down "nonessential" operations. It was the third shutdown
of the year. The previous two were brief.
“The president has made clear that any bill to fund the
government must adequately fund border security," White House
spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement that made no
mention of Trump's proposed wall.
The shutdown has had only a limited impact so far, partly due to
holiday vacations being underway for the 800,000 or so federal
workers affected, though that could change soon.
(Reporting by Ginger Gibson, David Morgan and Eric Beech;
editing by Kevin Drawbaugh, Phil Berlowitz and Jonathan Oatis)
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