The Clock is Ticking: Government Shutdown Deadline is Nearing

The clock is ticking, with lawmakers return to Washington on Monday with just 11 days left until the next deadline to avoid a government shutdown. An immigration-fueled showdown is growing after Democrats in recent days have rejected a long list of President Trump’s border wall and security demands.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who has taken the lead for his party in the negotiations, said they won’t accept those conditions.

“It’s outrageous that the White House would undercut months of bipartisan efforts by again trying to put its entire wish list of hard-line anti-immigrant bills — plus an additional $18 billion in wall funding — on the backs of these young people,” the senator said Friday.

Senators signaled after a Republican-only meeting with Trump last week that they were still far apart on any agreement, which is complicating separate talks on funding the government and avoiding across-the-board budget cuts.

With the last government shutdown in 2013, here was how much it ended up costing us..

• About $3.1 billion in lost government services, according to the research firm IHS
• $152 million per day in lost travel spending, according to the U.S. Travel Association
• $76 million per day lost because of National Parks being shut down, according to the National Park Service
• $217 million per day in lost federal and contractor wages in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area alone

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown, and  small businesses also suffered from frozen government- especially since tourism will be soon diminished with the closing of national monuments, and museums.