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The US government shutdown barrelled towards its second month on Friday and the pain is spreading fast – with federal workers broke, food aid vanishing and millions of Americans caught in the crossfire. What started on October 1 as a Washington sideshow has morphed into a slow-motion implosion of public services and a growing economic convulsion, with federal offices dark and President Donald Trump’s government stuck in neutral. Republicans warned that millions will begin feeling the full force of the shutdown for the first time this weekend, as unresolved fights over funding for healthcare and food stamps make them hungrier and poorer. “Most people haven’t noticed up until this week. Thanks to Donald Trump finding a way to pay our troops last month, that pain was delayed,” Republican House Whip Tom Emmer told Fox News. “But, starting this week … this is starting to become very real.” At the heart of the fight is money to help Americans cover health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare”. Those subsidies – a lifeline for more than 20 million people – are set to expire at year’s end and, unless Congress acts, premiums will skyrocket by an eye-watering average of 114 per cent when the new sign-up period opens Saturday. But Washington’s warring parties are locked in a familiar, bitter loop, as Democrats refuse to reopen the government without a deal to extend the subsidies and Trump’s Republicans saying they won’t talk until the lights are back on. As Washington bickers, the shutdown’s fallout is rippling through everyday life and starting to pinch where it really hurts – the dinner table. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps 42 million low-income Americans buy groceries, is set to run out of funds this weekend. Democrats have been pushing the White House to use US$5 billion in emergency cash to cover food stamps, but the administration says it cannot legally tap that fund. Glimmers of hope? With no end to the shutdown in sight, the deadlines are piling up fast. WIC – the food aid programme for pregnant women, new mothers and infants – is also on the brink, while “Head Start” programmes that provide nutrition and family support to 65,000 infants could begin shuttering from Saturday. The administration says it has scraped together enough money to cover Friday’s payday for active-duty troops, but acknowledges that they could go unpaid by mid-November. Some 670,000 federal workers have been sent home without pay, and another 730,000 – from park rangers to air traffic controllers – are working for nothing. Many missed their entire pay for the first time this week. The country’s largest federal workers’ union, AFGE, is begging Congress to pass a stopgap bill to get pay cheques flowing again. But even that has become political quicksand, with Democrats holding the line. Still, there are faint signs of life on Capitol Hill. After weeks of political trench warfare, a handful of centrist Democrats and pragmatic Republicans have quietly started sketching possible compromises, most hingeing on a commitment to tackle healthcare once the government reopens. Some Democrats are signalling openness to smaller bills to pay workers or keep food aid flowing – signs that both sides may be feeling the heat. And looming somewhere in the wings is Trump, whose shadow hangs over every Republican move. Lawmakers on both sides hope he’ll swoop in to broker a deal on the Obamacare subsidies. In a rare intervention in the crisis, Trump called on Thursday for the Senate to scrap its 60-vote threshold for legislation to pass, which would strip Democrats of all their leverage. He admonished Republicans on social media that “WE are in power, and if we did what we should be doing, it would IMMEDIATELY end this ridiculous, Country destroying ‘SHUT DOWN.’” Americans blame Trump and the Republicans over Democrats, by 45 per cent to 33 per cent, according to the latest ABC/Washington Post poll. Independents blame Republicans by a 2 to 1 margin.
