Record long shutdown. Trump demands 'nuclear option'

For the 14th time, the US Senate was unable to pass the provisional budget on Tuesday. This means that the government's 35-day paralysis of work will be the longest in the country's history. Still, Republican politicians are talking about a chance to end the impasse this week.

Tuesday's vote took place in a similar manner to the previous one on this matter: 52 Republicans and three moderate Democrats voted in favor of the draft provisional budget, providing the state with funds until November 21, while one senator of the ruling party joined 43 opposition politicians. This was not enough to overcome the 60-vote threshold to advance to the final vote for the project.

This most likely means that the shutdown that has been going on for 35 days will continue, breaking the previous record set in 2018. The adoption of the budget is blocked by Democrats, who demand the restoration of health insurance subsidies under the “Obamacare” system, without which insurance costs will increase dramatically.

Despite the ongoing impasse, recent days have brought the first real signals indicating the possibility of a compromise. On Monday, Republican leader John Thune spoke optimistically about it, arguing that an agreement was within reach. As he explained, the compromise would consist in guaranteeing a vote on extending Obamacare subsidies and a vote on adopting a partial budget for the entire year.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is increasingly demanding that his party use it “nuclear option”, i.e. abolition of the 60-vote threshold (so-called filibuster)required to pass most bills in the Senate. The long-standing rule has long been controversial, in practice preventing ruling parties from adopting most regulations without the support of part of the opposition.

In a post published on the Truth Social platform, Trump threatened that without it, Republicans would lose the next congressional and presidential elections because “it will be impossible to pass common sense policies with these crazed democratic lunatics who can block everything.”

NOTHING WILL BE ADOPTED FOR THREE YEARS AND REPUBLICANS WILL BE BLAME FOR IT. “The elections, including the midterm elections, will be rightly brutal,” Trump announced. Republican politicians in the Senate, led by Thun, have so far refused to meet Trump's demands. These politicians argue that when Democrats gain the majority in the Senate again, Republicans will not be able to stop their projects.

Tuesday is the 35th day without an adopted budget, which means that the record set at the turn of 2017 and 2018 in terms of the duration of this state has already been equaled. As a result of the shutdown, caused by a political dispute over health insurance subsidies, over a million federal employees have been working without pay for over a month, and 750,000 is on forced leave, also without pay. These people are to receive the outstanding funds after the adoption of the new budget. The shutdown also caused confusion at airports, leading to flight delays and temporary grounding of planes.

The US is at risk of closing its airspace

Transport Minister Sean Duffy warned on Tuesday that if the shutdown extends for another week, there will be “mass chaos” at airports across the country and the administration may even be forced to close some airspace

During Tuesday's press conference, Duffy stated that due to the budget paralysis that has been going on for a month, airport control towers lack 2,000-3,000. controllers.

– In a week, Democrats, you will see mass chaos. You will see massive flight delays. You're going to see mass cancellations and maybe we're going to close certain parts of the airspace because we just can't manage it because we don't have air traffic controllers,” Duffy said.

As a result of the shutdown, 13,000 flight controllers and airport security officers are working without pay, which has already led to significant delays at airports. If the impasse continues through Friday, these workers will no longer receive their second payment due.

On Tuesday, there were flight delays at the Phoenix airport due to the lack of an adequate number of controllers. Flights were also temporarily grounded at airports in New York due to wind and in Washington due to a false bomb threat on board one of the planes.

Duffy claimed that even before the shutdown, American airports were struggling with staffing problems, and the current impasse would only discourage potential candidates from working in control towers.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt also drew attention to the problem on Tuesday. She said that since the beginning of the shutdown, there have been four times as many delays at airports due to staffing issues, and in some airports, such as Houston, the time needed to go through security was more than 3 hours. The largest trade unions of pilots, airport workers and airlines called for an end to paralysis.

From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)

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