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What does shutdown mean for two million federal employees, agencies and tourist destinations?
The US government has begun a partial shutdown after the two houses of Congress failed to agree a new budget.
The Republican-led House of Representatives insisted on
delaying President Barack Obama's healthcare reform - dubbed Obamacare -
as a condition for passing a bill.
More than 700,000 federal employees face unpaid leave with no guarantee of back pay once the deadlock is over.
It is the first shutdown in 17 years and the dollar fell early on Tuesday.
“Start Quote
The Republican leadership looks and
feels trapped - they made demands that they knew wouldn't be met rather
than be accused of weakness and betrayal by their own hardliners”
Mark Mardell North America editor
Goldman Sachs estimates a three-week shutdown could shave as much as 0.9% from US GDP this quarter.
On Tuesday, Mr Obama blamed the House of Representatives for
the stalemate and said he would "keep working to get Congress to reopen
the government [and] restart vital services".
"This shutdown was completely preventable. It should not have happened," he wrote in a letter to federal government employees.
"And the House of Representatives can end it as soon as it
follows the Senate's lead, and funds your work in the United States
Government without trying to attach highly controversial and partisan
measures in the process."
On Monday, House Speaker John Boehner told reporters he hoped
the Senate would agree to a committee between the two chambers known as
a conference "so we can resolve this for the American people".
"The House has voted to keep the government open but we also want basic fairness for all Americans under Obamacare," he said.
But on Tuesday morning, the Senate voted 54-46 to reject the request for formal negotiations to end the impasse.
Who is affected?
- State department will be able to operate for limited time
- Department of defence will continue military operations
- Department of education will still distribute $22bn (£13.6bn) to public schools, but staffing is expected to be severely hit
- Department of energy - 12,700 staff expected to be sent home, with 1,113 remaining to oversee nuclear arsenal
- Department of health and human services expected to send home more than half of staff
- The Federal Reserve, dept of homeland security, and justice dept will see little or no disruption
- US Postal Services continue as normal
- Smithsonian institutions, museums, zoos and many national parks will close
Timeline: US budget crisis
- 20 September: House votes to scrap funding for Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")
- 30 September: Congress passes two budget bills coupled to Obamacare, both rejected by Senate
- 1 October: Key provisions of Obamacare come into force despite shutdown
- 17 October: Deadline for extending government borrowing limit, or debt ceiling
The BBC's Mark Mardell in Washington says the divide in US politics has grown so bitter that government itself cannot function.
Democrats were never likely to make concessions on healthcare
reform - Mr Obama's signature achievement and a central issue in last
year's presidential election, our correspondent says.
But Republicans have made demands that they knew would not be
met rather than be accused of weakness and betrayal by their own
hardliners, he adds.
Engineers with the US Navy talk to the BBC about what they will do during a shutdown: Make skis
On Monday, the Democratic-led Senate twice rejected bills from
House Republicans that would have funded the government only if funding
for President Obama's healthcare law was delayed for a year.
Major portions of the healthcare law, which passed in 2010
and has been validated by the US Supreme Court, took effect on Tuesday
regardless of whether there is a shutdown.
President Obama went on national television to criticise Republicans for trying to refight the last election.
Obama accused Republicans of demanding ransom over Obamacare
A shutdown would have "a very real economic impact on real
people, right away," he said, adding it would "throw a wrench" into the
US recovery.
"The idea of putting the American people's hard-earned
progress at risk is the height of irresponsibility, and it doesn't have
to happen."
As the shutdown neared, the Senate's Democratic majority
leader blamed Republicans for the imminent halt to all non-essential
government operations.
"It will be a Republican government shutdown, pure and simple," said Harry Reid, referring to the Republicans as "bullies".
The White House issued orders for government offices to start shutting down as the midnight deadline approached
Tourism revenues are expected to take a hit as attractions such as the Statue of Liberty close down
National parks, museums, federal buildings and government services have been shut down indefinitely
Some 700,000 federal workers have been sent home on unpaid leave
Some White House staff have been sent home, with all Smithsonian institutions in Washington closed
Mr Obama has signed legislation ensuring that military
personnel would be paid. The defence department had advised employees
that uniformed members of the military would continue on normal duty,
but that large numbers of civilian workers would be told to stay home.
US media
Michael Gerson, Washington Post:
We are no longer seeing a revolt against the Republican leadership, or
even against the Republican "establishment"; this revolt is against
anyone who accepts the constraints of political reality.
Editorial, Chicago Tribune: Once Republicans and Democrats stop grandstanding... we think there's an easy solution to this impasse.
International media
Pierre-Yves Dugua, Le Figaro, France: The [US] is being humiliated by the inability of its political system to carry out its primary mission: to pass a budget.
Patrick Welter, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany: The failure to reach agreement casts a dark shadow on the next and more important forthcoming round in the fiscal row.
Andrew Coyne, National Post, Canada:
The result of all this haggling, taken together, has been just the sort
of balanced approach, mixing spending cuts and tax increases, that
experts advise.
Under the shutdown, national
parks and Washington's Smithsonian museums will close, pension and
veterans' benefit cheques will be delayed, and visa and passport
applications will go unprocessed.
Programmes deemed essential, such as air traffic control and food inspections, will continue.
The US government has not undergone a shutdown since 1995-96, when services were suspended for a record 21 days.
Republicans demanded then-President Bill Clinton agree to their version of a balanced budget.
As lawmakers grappled with the latest shutdown, the 17
October deadline for extending the government's borrowing limit looms
even larger.
On that date, the US government will reach the limit at which it can borrow money to pay its bills, the so-called debt ceiling.
House Republicans have also demanded a series of policy
concessions - including on the president's health law and on financial
and environmental regulations - in exchange for raising the debt
ceiling.
Guy Crundwell from Connecticut told the BBC that politicians
should be solving the country's problems rather than engaging in a
"charade".
"I am very fiscally conservative but for moral issues I lean
towards the Democrats, but I'll be damned if I want to see either of
them wasting my money on this sort of posturing."
Obama accused Republicans of demanding ransom over Obamacare
President
Barack Obama has called off his trip to Malaysia to tackle the US
government shutdown, the office of Malaysia's PM Najib Razak has said.
Secretary of State John Kerry will represent him next week instead, the office said.
The US government has partially shut down after the two houses of Congress failed to agree a new budget.
More than 700,000 federal employees face unpaid leave, and national parks, museums and many buildings are closed.
Mr Obama earlier vowed not to allow Republicans to undermine
his signature healthcare legislation as a condition to restart the US
government.
"They demanded ransom," Mr Obama said.
Four-nation trip
Mr Najib's office said Mr Obama had called the prime minister
on Wednesday to inform him that Mr Kerry would address an
entrepreneurship conference in Kuala Lumpur on 11 October in his place.
A group of military veterans who flew in from
Mississippi as part of an arranged tour bypassed the gates at the World
War II memorial.
Mr Obama's visit would have been the first by a US president to Malaysia since Lyndon B Johnson in 1966.
Mr Obama had been scheduled to begin a four-nation Asian trip on Saturday to boost economic ties.
It would also have taken in Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines.
There has been no confirmation yet of what Mr Obama intends to do with the rest of the itinerary.
Mr Obama has been forced to call off trips to Asia before.
In 2010, a vote on health care and the Gulf of Mexico oil
spill forced separate cancellations in March and June, though he did
make it to India, South Korea, Japan and Indonesia in November of that
year.
'A lot of anxiety'
The US government ceased operations deemed non-essential at midnight on Tuesday, when the previous budget expired.
National parks and Washington's Smithsonian museums are
closed, pension and veterans' benefit cheques will be delayed, and visa
and passport applications will go unprocessed.
However, members of the military will be paid.
One group of elderly military veterans managed to bypass the
shutdown when the WWII Memorial in Washington DC - that they had
travelled from Mississippi to see - was opened for them.
Treasury department employee Peter Gamba told the BBC he was worried by the turn of events.
"For whatever reason I cannot fathom, you're asking me to
again give up my pay and give up service to the American public," he
said.
"It's a nightmare for me financially, it causes me a lot of anxiety and stress and I don't sleep well at night."
- State department will be able to operate for limited time
- Department of defence will continue military operations
- Department of education will still distribute $22bn (£13.6bn) to public schools, but staffing is expected to be severely hit
- Department of energy - 12,700 staff expected to be sent home, with 1,113 remaining to oversee nuclear arsenal
- Department of health and human services expected to send home more than half of staff
- The Federal Reserve, dept of homeland security, and justice dept will see little or no disruption
- US Postal Services continue as normal
- Smithsonian institutions, museums, zoos and many national parks will close
President Obama has blamed
conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives for the
government shutdown, saying "one faction of one party" was responsible
because "they didn't like one law".
"They've shut down the government over an ideological crusade
to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans," Mr Obama
said.
The White House rejected a Republican plan to fund only a few
portions of the government - national parks, veterans' programmes and
the budget of the District of Columbia.
The Republicans have called for more negotiations.
A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner called the White House's position "unsustainably hypocritical".
What does shutdown mean for two million federal employees, agencies and tourist destinations?
Rory Cooper, a spokesman for Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, accused Mr Obama of "hyper-partisan speeches".
An opinion poll released on Tuesday suggested the American public was inclined to fault the Republican strategy.
An estimated 72% of voters oppose Congress shutting down the federal government in order to block the health law, according a poll by Quinnipiac University.
The healthcare law passed in 2010, was subsequently validated
by the US Supreme Court, and was a major issue in the 2012 presidential
election.
The next key deadline in the US is 17 October, when the
government reaches the limit at which it can borrow money to pay its
bills, the so-called debt ceiling.
House Republicans have demanded a series of policy
concessions - including on the health law and on financial and
environmental regulations - in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.
President Obama is due to meet the heads of some of Wall
Street's biggest banks - including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and
Bank of America - to discuss the debt ceiling and other economic issues.
The bankers are members of the Financial Services Forum, a
lobbying group which has, along with 250 other businesses, sent a letter
to Congress urging it to raise the debt ceiling.
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