The US government shutting down for first time in years has people making awkward point

The US government has shut down today, and people are pointing out an awkward fact.

Many government services ground to a halt after house Democrats and Republicans failed to reach an agreement on a government spending bill.

This means that some, though not all, federal services in the US are effectively paused until the deadlock is resolved.

While the Republicans do control both chambers in the US they are short the majority they would need to be able to pass a budget bill, so they have to win over enough Democrats to get the bill through.

That means that the Democrats have some leverage, and given the Republicans have said they want to massively cut government services, that's not something the Dems approve of.

Government shutdowns are highly disruptive, and many people have pointed out an awkward factor in the last time the US government shut down.

Donald Trump was president during the longest shutdown in US history (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

This is that the last shut down ran from December 2018 to January 2019 - during Donald Trump's first term as president.

Meanwhile under Joe Biden's presidency there were no shutdowns, but now Trump is in the White House again there is suddenly another shutdown.

Taking to social media one person wrote: "Guess who was president the last time… the same dude."

Another posted: "Trump's only consistent with giving us shutdowns."

A critical part of the bill is healthcare spending, with Democrats refusing to back a bill they say will make it more difficult for citizens to afford healthcare.

At present, it's anyone's guess how long the shutdown will continue, but one side will eventually have to give ground for it to come to an end.

This is likely to happen in one of two ways.

The Republicans could make adjustments to the budget bill to persuade Democrats to back it, which could involve concessions on healthcare and tax credits.

Republicans are blaming the Democrats for the shutdown (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Another option is that the shutdown goes on for so long that the Democrats concede ground as the disruption to government services becomes too much.

Republicans are already blaming the Democrats for the shutdown after they refused to back the Republican budget.

A counter-proposal by the Democrats might have resolved the deadlock and reopened the government.

However, this was rejected by the house by 47-53 as Republicans voted against it, continuing the shutdown.

The government shutdown will see disruption to a lot of services, though not all.

Services which are designated as 'essential', for example in-hospital medical care, firefighters, police, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will continue during the shutdown.

However services such as national parks as well as institutions such as the Smithsonian will face disruption during the shutdown.

The last government shutdown lasted 35 days, making it the longest national government shutdown in US history.

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