US government reopens with clock running on funding talks

The US government reopened on Monday with about 800,000 federal workers returning after a 35-day shutdown as lawmakers geared up for talks to avoid another stand-off before funding runs out again in three weeks.

Amid mounting pressure, US President Donald Trump agreed to end the longest government shutdown in history as the effects spread across the country.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said on Monday that the shutdown cost about US$11 billion and shaved 0.2 percent off the nation’s annual economic growth forecasts.

Trump and Congress reached a deal to reopen the roughly one-quarter of the government that had been closed despite the president not getting the US$5.7 billion he had demanded to build his long-promised wall along the US-Mexico border.

Still, it remained to be seen how lawmakers address border security before the February 15 deadline while avoiding another closure. A committee of lawmakers from both parties will try to negotiate a compromise on border security as Congress prepared to reconvene on Monday.

“Government is open again, but we cannot forget what shutdowns mean: unnecessary anguish for millions of Americans,” Representative Madeleine Dean, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said in a tweet.

She is one of the dozens of new Democrats who took office this month as her party took control of the House of Representatives.

Trump vowed to shut down the government again unless an acceptable border deal is reached, and on Sunday expressed scepticism that such an agreement could be made.

He also left open the possibility of declaring a national emergency to get money for the wall, an extraordinary move that Democrats and some Republicans have vowed to fight and that would certainly face a court challenge.

The Democrats, eager to capitalise on their political victory, oppose any border wall money but say they back additional funding for border security measure such as increased technology and Border Patrol agents.

Republicans, who controlled both the Senate and the House when the shutdown began December 22, are wary of a repeat closure. Polls show the public mostly blamed Trump and his party for the shutdown.

Federal workers are expected to get paid this week for the five weeks of missed paychecks. Federal contractors and businesses that relied on federal workers’ business, however, face huge losses, although some lawmakers are pushing legislation to pay contractors back as well.

“We can never put families in such a difficult position again,” US Senator Richard Durbin, the No. 3 Democrat in the chamber, said Sunday night on Twitter.