US vice president predicts shutdown will be short-term amid continued standoff

WASHINGTON

Vice President JD Vance predicted Wednesday that a US government shutdown will be short-lived despite little evidence that either the White House or congressional Democrats are willing to budge.

"I actually don't think it's going to be that long of a shutdown. This is a pure guess from the Vice President United States, because I think you already saw some evidence that moderate Democrats are cracking a little bit. They understand the fundamental illogic of this," Vance told reporters at the White House.

Vance made the comments one hour after Senate Democrats again rejected a Republican proposal, already passed by the House of Representatives, to fund the government at current levels through late November. Only three Democrats backed the proposal, well short of the total needed to overcome a key 60-vote threshold to pass legislation in the chamber.

Democrats have sought to include health care reforms as part of any budget bill, including a reversal of part of President Donald Trump's signature tax law that established cuts to Medicaid funding, as well as an extension of subsidies under the US's quasi-universal health care law known as the Affordable Care Act.

The Republican-controlled Senate rejected along party lines a stopgap funding bill that would have included the funding Tuesday evening.

Commenting on Trump's threat to enact layoffs during the shutdown, which he said would disproportionately affect Democrats, Vance denied that the effort would intentionally target the party.

"We're not targeting federal agencies based on politics. We're targeting the people's government so that as much as possible of the essential services can continue to function," he said.

"If this thing drags on for another few days, or, God forbid, another few weeks, we are going to have to lay people off. We're going to have to save money in some places so the essential services don't get turned off in other places," he added.

Trump said Tuesday that if a shutdown took effect, "we'd be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected, and the Democrats, they're going to be Democrats."

While a shutdown does not automatically result in a full-blown economic crisis, it creates major disruptions for many aspects of American life.

Many federal employees will be furloughed, or forced to work without pay, while others will be placed on mandatory leave until a new budget is approved. Trump has added the threat of layoffs this time, and the White House declined to specify whether they would be short-term or permanent.

"We believe that layoffs are imminent. They are, unfortunately, a consequence of this government shutdown," spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters.