US President Donald Trump is edging closer to declaring a national emergency to fund his long-promised border wall, as pressure mounts to find an escape hatch from the three-week impasse that has closed parts of the government, leaving hundreds of thousands of workers without pay.

Some 800,000 workers, more than half of them still on the job, were to miss their first paycheck on Friday under the stoppage, and Washington was close to setting a dubious record for the longest government shutdown in the nation’s history.

Those markers — along with growing effects to national parks, food inspections and the economy overall — left some Republicans on Capitol Hill increasingly uncomfortable with Mr Trump’s demands.

Asked about the plight of those going without pay, the president shifted the focus, saying he felt badly “for people that have family members that have been killed” by criminals who came over the border.

Mr Trump visited McAllen, Texas, and the Rio Grande on Thursday to highlight what he calls a crisis of drugs and crime. He said that “if for any reason we don’t get this going” — an agreement with House Democrats who have refused to approve the $5.7 billion ($A7.8bn) he demands for the wall — “I will declare a national emergency.”

Mr Trump was consulting with White House attorneys and allies about using presidential emergency powers to take unilateral action to construct the wall over the objections of Congress. He claimed his lawyers told him the action would withstand legal scrutiny “100 per cent.”

Such a move to bypass Congress’ constitutional control of the nation’s purse strings would spark certain legal challenges and bipartisan cries of executive overreach.

A congressional official said the Trump administration is eyeing billions of dollars of relief funds earmarked for hurricane-pounded Puerto Rico, Texas, California, Florida and other states to be diverted to a border wall as part of the emergency declaration.

The White House has directed the Army Corps of Engineers to comb through its budget, including $13.9 billion ($A19bn) in emergency funds that Congress set aside last year for disaster relief.

The money also funds a variety of projects, mostly flood control to prevent future disasters.

Regardless of where the money is found, an emergency declaration would draw immediate legal challenge from Democrats, who have accused Mr Trump of trying to manufacture a crisis at the southern border to justify his wall. Critics have said the move would be an unconstitutional abuse of emergency powers.

After being criticised for denying he ever said Mexico would directly pay for the wall, Mr Trump tweeted on Friday morning:

I often said during rallies, with little variation, that “Mexico will pay for the Wall.” We have just signed a great new Trade Deal with Mexico. It is Billions of Dollars a year better than the very bad NAFTA deal which it replaces. The difference pays for Wall many times over! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2019

WHO IS AFFECTED BY THE SHUTDOWN?

Some 800,000 federal workers did not receive paychecks they were due on Friday.

Cities with economies tied to federal spending are showing signs of strain. One is Huntsville, Alabama, where about 70 federal agencies are located at the Army’s Redstone Arsenal: Hotel rooms are vacant because out-of-town government workers and contractors aren’t coming, restaurants frequented by federal workers are struggling, parking lots are empty and offices at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center are dark.

Federal clean-ups at Superfund sites around the nation have been suspended. Nine of the 15 Cabinet-level departments have not been funded, including Agriculture, Homeland Security, State, Transportation, Interior and Justice. Some iconic National Park facilities are shuttered as are the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo in Washington. Nearly everyone at NASA is being told to stay home, as are most at the Internal Revenue Service, which processes tax returns and issues refunds, though the administration says tax refunds will be issued during the shutdown.

Some 420,000 federal employees whose work is declared essential are working without pay, including the FBI, TSA and other federal law enforcement officers. Some staff at the State and Homeland Security departments are also working without compensation. The Senate approved a bill to provide back pay to federal workers and the House has voted to ensure that all federal employees will be paid retroactively after the partial government shutdown ends. The bill now heads to Mr Trump, who is expected to sign it. Mr Trump said this week that federal workers will “get their money.”

The shutdown has begun to make it harder to assess the health of the economy by delaying or distorting key reports on growth, spending and hiring.

Government data on home construction and retail sales, for example, won’t be released next week because staffers who compile those reports have been furloughed.

The retail sales report provides a snapshot of consumer spending, which fuels more than two-thirds of the economy. With department stores Macy’s and Kohl’s having said that their Christmas sales were weaker than expected, a broader gauge of retail spending would have provided important clarity.

In addition, the next report on the economy’s overall growth, set for Jan. 30, won’t be released if the shutdown remains in effect. Even if the government has fully reopened by then, federal workers won’t likely have had enough time to produce the scheduled report on the nation’s GDP.</s>Government shutdown enters 22nd day, becoming the longest federal closure in U.S. history

WASHINGTON (AP) — Government shutdown enters 22nd day, becoming the longest federal closure in U.S. history.</s>WASHINGTON — The federal government has entered Day 22 of a partial government shutdown, becoming the longest closure in U.S. history.

Nine of the 15 Cabinet-level departments have not been funded. The Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs, the government’s largest agencies, are the most notable exceptions and continue to operate since they were funded through Sept. 30.

The previous record for the longest shutdown occurred during Bill Clinton’s presidency. That one lasted from December 15, 1995, through January 6, 1996.

The current shutdown appears destined to last at least a few more days, Democratic lawmakers rejecting President Donald Trump’s demands to include $5.7 billion for a border wall in a spending bill.

The shutdown has furloughed 380,000 federal workers and forced an additional 420,000 to work without pay.</s>Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — The 22-day partial government shutdown became the longest shutdown in United States history, breaking a record from 1996 on Saturday.

President Donald Trump and Congress continue to dispute funding for a wall at the southern border, a proposal backed by the president.

Meanwhile, nearly 800,000 federal workers are affected — many of them missed their first paychecks since the shutdown started on Friday, according to the American Federation of Government Employees. Another one-third will experience a missed paycheck on Monday, with the rest turning up empty on Tuesday.

About half of those workers — 420,000 — are required to work without pay.

On Friday, the closure tied the longest government shutdown in history, which stretched 21 days from December 1995 to January 1996 under President Bill Clinton. A November 1995 Washington Post/ABC News survey found that respondents put most of the blame on the Republican Congress instead of the Clinton administration.

Throughout American history, government shutdowns have been a symbol of dysfunction within the government. Between 1976 and 1996, the government shut down 17 times.

In past shutdowns, federal workers have received back pay after the government resumed operating. But an unknown number of contractors are unlikely to receive compensation.

Negotiations came to a standstill this week after a tense meeting between Trump and Democratic leaders. After refusing the president’s proposal to fund a wall at the southern border, Democrats claimed the president threw a “temper tantrum” walking out of the meeting.

“It’s cold out here and the temperature wasn’t much warmer inside the Situation Room,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

The vice president denied those claims insisting the president was calm. “The president walked into the room and passed out candy,” Pence said. “It’s true. I don’t recall him ever raising his voice or slamming his hand,” Pence said.

Trump took to Twitter to call the meeting “a total waste of time.” On Thursday, the president signaled that he may declare a national emergency at the border if his administration and Democrats remain without a deal. The White House has directed the Army Corps of Engineers to explore funds in its budget to build the wall. He also canceled his trip to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland citing “Democrats intransigence on border security.”

So far, the Trump administration has tried to blunt the impact on the general public by promising to maintain food assistance through February and bringing back Internal Revenue Service personnel to process tax refunds.

But the longer the shutdown lasts, the more federal agencies will be operating in unknown territory.

One big question is whether subsidies for low-income housing could be at risk. The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced this month that 1,150 contracts with landlords have already expired and that another 500 will expire in January and 500 in February.

HUD officials say evictions have not happened in previous shutdowns.</s>The Longest Government Shutdown In History, No Longer — How 1995 Changed Everything

It took three full weeks — 21 days — for President Bill Clinton and the Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to settle an impasse that partially shut down the government in 1995-96.

That particular moment is a landmark in U.S. political history, birthing a new era of American gridlock that arguably led to the sharp partisanship that has gripped the nation — and delivered a new record for a partial government shutdown, marking day 22 on Saturday.

Shutdowns had been a rare thing in U.S. history. The first one came just over 40 years ago, 200 years after the country's founding. But since that time, the fisticuffs of divided government and spending disputes have become fairly commonplace — if not usually this lengthy.

First shutdown was in 1976

The first partial shutdown came under President Gerald Ford in 1976 when he vetoed a spending bill amid a dispute over the budget for the Department of Health, Education & Welfare (a department that no longer exists in that form or under that name).

A whole slew of them followed over the next two decades. There were half a dozen during Jimmy Carter's four years in office, and eight between 1981 and 1989 during Ronald Reagan's administration.

But the finger-pointing then — and the rhetoric — can feel quite familiar to today. In 1984, President Reagan laid the blame on what he saw as intransigent House Democrats.

"This has been typical of what has been happening since we've been here," he said, "and you can lay this on the majority party in the House of Representatives."

There are some big differences between those early government shutdowns and what's seen today.

"They tended to revolve around basically bargaining over routine government activities," said Duke University political scientist David Rohde.

There would be a budget negotiation and maybe a fight over some item large or small — perhaps funding for a new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (1978), or the MX missile (1982).

The deadline would pass; the government would partially shut down; but the two sides would continue negotiating, confident that they'd find some quick compromise that would get everything up and operating again.

"There was a lot less political heat," Rohde said, "and a lot less attention paid by the general public."

Then came the 1990s

In fall and winter of 1995 and 1996, Clinton was president and Republicans had control of the House for the first time in 40 years. Gingrich wanted deep budget cuts after Republicans took back the House in 1994 offering a "Contract with America."

Gingrich felt he had a mandate to enact strictures on big government. His "contract" promised to make government spend less and laid out galvanizing principles for his followers in Congress that also laid the foundation for the Tea Party two decades later — and the modern Republican Party.

President Clinton, a southern Democrat, said he was committed to a balanced budget. But the two sides couldn't agree on whose long-term budget projections to use — the White House wanted to use data from its Office of Management and Budget, while Republicans wanted the Congressional Budget Office's. The CBO had a less optimistic view of revenue that would be coming in, thus requiring deeper spending cuts.

Clinton accused the GOP of having "failed to pass the straightforward legislation necessary to keep the government running without imposing sharp hikes in Medicare premiums and deep cuts in education and the environment."

Gingrich responded: "We think all the president has to do is commit to a seven-year balanced budget with honest numbers and an honest scoring system."

The language was bureaucratic, but it represented a huge change in how such negotiations were conducted. The dispute wasn't simply a matter of haggling over a specific department budget or a single line item; it was about ideology, getting to the very core of how big the federal government should be and how it should operate.

The first shutdown that session was five days, followed by a 21-day impasse that stood until now as the longest government shutdown ever.

Today's shutdown continues without a clear way out, short of the president declaring a national emergency at the southern border and signing spending bills.

There was no quick and easy solution to the dispute in 1995-96, either. Each side was certain that the public would side with them. As it turned out, Gingrich and the GOP lost that particular bet. Polls at the time showed that the public put the blame on the House speaker and his party, and that they wanted the government operating again.

Cracks formed in the Republican solidarity, and in a session of Congress held on New Year's Eve, Republican Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas signaled that the fight was over for his fellow Republicans.

"We ought to end this," Dole said on the Senate floor. "I mean, it's gotten to the point where it's a little ridiculous as far as this Senator is concerned."

The government reopened days later. It was widely seen as a setback for the GOP, and the shutdown of 1995-96 became known as a cautionary tale for years to come.

Two decades without a shutdown — for a reason

After the political pain that was felt in the mid-90s over that shutdown, there wasn't another one until 2013, when Republicans used budget negotiations to try to de-fund the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare."

The shutdown did last 17 days, but, as was the case some 18 years earlier, Republicans failed to win the big prize they had targeted that year.

Democrats had their own government shutdown defeat early last year. They did so in an effort to force passage of legislation aimed at giving legal immigration status to those granted special DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, status — the so-called DREAMers.

It was a miscalculation, and Democrats backed down quickly after a shutdown when poll numbers were shifting against them.

Fast forward to today's shutdown, driven by Trump's demand for $5.7 billion to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico. Rohde said it's a lot like 1995, in that it's not a mere budget fight.

But this impasse is especially difficult because of one major factor.

"Trump's calculation politically is not about the center of the electorate," Rhode said. "That's the difference."

The president has said he's worried about losing his hardcore base of supporters. They are anything but the kind of centrist swing voters whose opinion can give one side or another the upper hand in such negotiations.

But the Trump sees them as his key to victory, and he's pushing Republicans who disagree that they need to get on board as well. Small cracks have begun to show among Republicans in Congress, but it's not a gusher.

And all of that makes finding a resolution especially difficult.</s>More than 800,000 US federal workers are caught up in the escalating row between Donald Trump and Congress. President Trump is refusing to approve a funding budget unless his $5.7billion (£4.5billion) finance bill for a wall along the US-Mexico border is agreed. Building the wall was one of the US president’s key election pledges but Democrats are fiercely opposed to his plans. So far the partial shutdown has disrupted essential services including air travel, rubbish collection, and food safety checks.

How long has Trump's shutdown lasted so far? The US partial government shutdown moved into its 22nd day on Saturday, officially became the longest one in the country's history. Today's record beats the previous longest shutdown of 21 days from 1995 to 1996 when former US president Bill Clinton was in office. Mr Trump said yesterday the “easy solution” would be to call a national emergency before adding he wanted Congress to resolve the issue.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat Party member, said the US president would have to move first in ending the stalemate. The Democrats have threatened immediate legal action if Mr Trump declares a national emergency. What are the effects of the partial shutdown? Desperate workers have shared appeals online or have started selling their possessions after paychecks failed to materialise.

Vice President Mike Trump has promised employees will receive backdated pay with legislation passed in Congress once the government fully reopens. A quarter of US federal government workers have been impacted by the partial shutdown but employees deemed “essential” workers must continue to work without pay. They include prison guards, air traffic controllers and security staff, and enforcement workers such as FBI agents. Rising numbers of Transportation Security Administration employees at airports have begun calling in sick.</s>The ongoing partial government shutdown hit a new milestone on Friday by matching the record for the longest government shutdown in US history.

Today marks the 21st day of the partial shutdown that started days before Christmas over a standoff between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats over funding for the President’s long-promised border wall.

That’s the same length of time as the 21-day shutdown that stretched from December 1995 to January 1996 as a result of a clash between President Bill Clinton and the GOP Congress. That shutdown currently holds the record as the longest in US history.

As of now, there is still no end in sight to the current partial shutdown, putting it on track to break that record by Saturday.

The President and congressional Democrats remain at an impasse as Trump continues to demand more than $5 billion for a border wall and Democrats refuse to agree to that request.

An estimated 800,000 federal workers have been impacted by the shutdown, either by having to work without pay while it lasts or by being furloughed.

The lapse in funding has hit roughly a quarter of the federal government, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the Interior Department and the State Department.

The President ramped up his efforts this week to make a direct appeal to the American public.

Trump delivered a prime-time address to the nation on Tuesday night where he warned of a “crisis” at the southern border with Mexico, and on Thursday, he made a visit to the border.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer forcefully rebutted the President in a speech of their own Tuesday where Pelosi accused Trump of “holding the American people hostage” to his demands.

As the shutdown drags on, Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility that he might declare a national emergency in an effort to secure funding for a border wall. Congressional Republicans have sounded wary of such a move and some have expressed outright opposition, while Democrats have expressed alarm.

In a sign of the deep divide between the two parties, congressional lawmakers spent much of the week blaming the other side for the impasse — with no significant action taken to resolve the shutdown.

House Democrats spent the week advancing spending bills to reopen shuttered parts of the federal government, but the legislation they have put forward will not include any new money for a wall and has been met with White House veto threats.

Prospects for any kind of a deal grew even dimmer after Trump walked out of a meeting with Schumer and Pelosi on Wednesday to discuss the shutdown and then took to Twitter to call it “a total waste of time.”

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made clear that he won’t take up any legislation related to the shutdown in the Senate that President Donald Trump won’t sign. And the President has dug in in his refusal to sign legislation that does not meet his demand for roughly $5 billion for a border wall, which Democrats refuse to provide.

On Thursday, Senate Democrats attempted to force a vote in the Senate on the House-passed spending bills, but were blocked by McConnell who accused Democrats of taking part in “political stunts” and described their efforts as little more than pointless “show votes.”

A last-ditch, long-shot effort to broker compromise in the Senate also appeared to stall out on Thursday.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who had been involved in the effort, told reporters on Thursday, “I just don’t see a pathway forward,” after several days of talks.

Other senators said they recognized that the only way out of the standoff would be for Trump, Pelosi and Schumer to reach a deal that would be acceptable to them and that could pass the House and Senate and be signed into law.

Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, put it this way: “The President and Schumer and Pelosi are going to have to get together and say, ‘This is what we agree on.'”</s>Here’s what’s up with the partial government shutdown on Day 21.

The shutdown sets a new record, matching the longest stoppage yet: a 21-day closure that ended Jan. 6, 1996, during President Bill Clinton’s administration.

Financial pain hits some 800,000 federal workers who will not receive paychecks they were due on Friday.

President Donald Trump holds a White House round-table on “border security and safe communities” with state, local and community leaders as he continues to highlight his rationale for insisting that a wall be built on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump: “They say this is a manufactured crisis. But it’s not. What is manufactured is the use of the word manufactured.”

Justice Department trial attorney Theodore Atkinson of Baltimore: “It’s all uncertain and I don’t know how it ends or resolves itself. This isn’t a matter of me not going to the movies or out to eat as much. I can’t cut off my power or my cellphone or move out of my house.”

The shutdown sets the all-time record on Saturday, Day 22, when it officially becomes the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history.

Nine of the 15 Cabinet-level departments have not been funded, including Agriculture , Homeland Security, State, Transportation, Interior and Justice. Some iconic National Park facilities are shuttered as are the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo in Washington. Nearly everyone at NASA is being told to stay home, as are most at the Internal Revenue Service, which processes tax returns and issues refunds, though the administration says tax refunds will be issued during the shutdown.

WHO IS AT WORK BUT NOT GETTING PAID

Some 420,000 federal employees whose work is declared essential are working without pay, including the FBI, TSA and other federal law enforcement officers. Some staff at the State and Homeland Security departments are also working without compensation. The Senate has approved a bill to provide back pay to federal workers. The House must vote on it. Trump said this week that federal workers will “get their money.”</s>The government shutdown over border security is now the longest in U.S. history.

Saturday marked 22 days since the start of a partial government shutdown that has left some 800,000 people without paychecks and caused growing effects on national parks, food inspections and the overall economy.

The second-longest shutdown lasted 21 days under former president Bill Clinton.

With President Donald Trump and Democrats unable to reach a deal over funding a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, the president has said he is considering declaring a national emergency. A declaration would allow Trump to bypass Congress and allocate the $5.7 billion he demands for the wall.

Previous shutdowns have occurred under both Democrat and Republican presidents’ administrations and were precipitated by disagreements over taxes, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, health care, abortion and other issues.

Here’s a look at the five longest shutdowns in U.S. history:

Duration: 21 days. Started on Dec. 16, 1995 and ended on Jan. 6, 1996.

This shutdown started after former President Bill Clinton and former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich disagreed on the budget. Gingrich pushed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other programs, and Clinton vetoed the bill. That triggered a brief shutdown between November 14 and 19, which then led to the second-longest shutdown in U.S. history.

When Gingrich was asked to explain why he shuttered the government, he said that on an Air Force One trip to attend the funeral for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Clinton hadn’t talked to him. To top it off, Gingrich explained, he had been forced to exit from the back of the plane.

"It's petty...but I think it's human," said Gingrich in a 1995 interview.

Congress passed a defense bill, which included funding for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Former-President Jimmy Carter decided that the carrier as a waste of federal funds and vetoed the bill. He also vetoed a public works appropriations bill that included water projects. Another sticking point concerned funding for abortion under Medicaid.

The shutdown ended when the president approved a new defense deal that did not include funding for the aircraft carrier, along with a new public works bill. The previous year’s decisions on abortion funding was kept the same.

Perhaps still fresh in the minds of some individuals, the Obamacare shutdown in 2013 started after the Republican-controlled House submitted a continuing resolution to fund the government that did not include funding for the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

The Senate rejected the bill, and after some back and forth between the two chambers, the government shut down. The shutdown, however, did not stop the rollout of Obamacare because 85 percent of its funding was already covered as part of the mandatory budget, much like Social Security and Medicare.

Though Democrats controlled the House, Senate and presidency, fighting within the parties led to this 12-day government shutdown. The House insisted on continuing a ban on using Medicaid funding to pay for abortions, except in cases in which the mother’s life was at stake.

The Senate wanted to make allowances for cases of rape and incest. In the end, the House won, and the Medicaid ban was continued until Oct. 31 to give negotiators more time to work on a compromise.

But that was far from the end of the fight. Two subsequent shutdowns (yes, TWO), lasting eight days each, resulted from this argument between the House and Senate over funding for abortion through Medicaid. Eventually, on Dec. 9, a deal was brokered in which exceptions were made allowing Medicaid to pay for abortions in cases in which the mother’s life is endangered, in cases of rape and incest, and in cases in which it is necessary to protect the mother’s health.

In yet another spat over abortion funding during Carter’s presidency, the lower House wanted to limit federal abortion spending exclusively to cases in which the mother’s life was in danger, as was the issue two years before. The House also wanted to raise congressional and senior civil servant pay, which the Senate opposed.

Eventually, the House got its pay raise but had to allow abortion funding in cases of rape and incest (but not when the mother’s health is in danger) as a compromise.</s>The partial government shutdown that began on Dec. 22 has lasted 17 days and could be tied with the second-longest funding gap in U.S. history if it lasts until Tuesday.

A funding gap that began on Sept. 30, 1978 ended after 18 days.

That shutdown was sparked when former President Jimmy Carter vetoed a defense bill he viewed as wasteful.

He went back and forth with Congress, even though both chambers were Democrat-controlled, and finally won out on Oct. 18, 1978, according to USA Today.

President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter that “not much headway” was made during Saturday talks to end the partial government shutdown.

The current shutdown is now more than two weeks old and was triggered after a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government expired on Dec. 21. At the center of the funding battle is $5 billion for the border wall Trump wants to build.

The only funding gap longer than the one that began Sept. 30, 1978 began on Dec. 16, 1995 and lasted for 21 days.

It occurred when former President Bill Clinton refused to cut spending and was hamstrung when former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich refused to raise the debt ceiling, according to USA Today.

Clinton won out according to most accounts by submitting a seven-year balanced budget plan.

Gingrich was ridiculed by the media when he said he had been willing to shut down the government twice in 1995 because he felt he had not been given the respect he deserved during a trip on Air Force One.

Eighteen funding gaps have occurred since fiscal year 1977, ranging in duration from one day to 21 full days, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Other government shutdowns that lasted more than a few days include a 16-day shutdown during the Obama administration that was triggered by the Affordable Care Act and a 12-day shutdown during the Carter administration caused by disagreements over when Medicaid dollars could be used to fund abortions, reported the Washington Post.

1977 was also the year that saw the most days of partial government shutdowns — there were three shutdowns that added up to a total of 28 days during that year of the Carter administration.

Trump has indicated the current shutdown could last for months or even a year.

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

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On its 22nd day, the federal government shutdown becomes the longest in American history overtaking the record previously set in 1995–1996.