By Khimmoy Hudson

The United States of America has, once again shattered a record; but, this record isn’t one that anyone hoped to break.

In the latest showdown between the President and the Democrats, the funding for many federal offices – and its employees — stopped on Saturday, December 22nd of 2018.

The partial shutdown.

What is now the longest shutdown in American history — and the third shutdown in Trump’s three years in office — started over an impasse over immigration. President Trump’s asked Congress for $5.75 billion for a southern border wall. The Democrats refused.

Under the Constitution, Congress is supposed to periodically pass bills that approve spending for the federal government. In practice, those spending bills can last a few weeks or months or a whole year; they can fund the full government or just parts of it.

Whenever the current spending bill expires, lawmakers must pass a new one to keep the government running. Without an approved spending plan, the federal government cannot pay its bills, and so agencies begin to close, they stop providing services, and their workers are furloughed – basically placed on leave and instructed not to come to work — or forced to work without pay.

Many workers, like TSA agents who screen passengers and their luggage at airports, are considered essential personnel and are expected to continue work, despite the fact that they have not received a paycheck.

The internet is full of tearful stories of federal employees who cannot pay their bills, like Krisite Scarazzo a botanist and single mother who told People Magazine that she is “panicking” and “doesn’t even have a wedding ring to sell.”

There are over 800,000 federal employees in similar situations and it has become somewhat of a national embarrassment as people have resorted to pawning family heirlooms, opening GoFundMe Accounts and visiting local Food Banks.

José Andrés, the famed celebrity chef, runs a disaster-relief group called World Central Kitchen. They travel to help people who are hungry and desperate, usually because of natural disasters like Hurricane Maria which devastated Puerto Rico.

“We believe that no person should have to go through the pain of not knowing what to feed the children,” said the chef who runs a disaster-relief group, World Central Kitchen.

The team is now providing hot meals to federal employees at a kitchen-café located on Pennsylvania Avenue between Capitol Hill and the White House. The initiative is called #ChefsForFeds.

Most American families live paycheck to paycheck, and those affected by the shutdown are now going to miss a second paycheck. Their rent, car payments, electric bills and other expenses are piling up.

People want the government to open and the political stakes are getting higher.

Many recent polls suggest that Americans are increasingly opposed to a wall and, increasingly, blame the President for this shutdown.

“I think everyone wants to compromise except the president,” said Candice Nelson, a professor and Academic Director of The Campaign Management Institute at American University. “He keeps changing the goal line.”

President Trump did offer, what he called a compromise, in a public address on Saturday: extending DACA protections and TPS for three years in exchange for funding the wall.

But the battle between Trump and the Democrats has only intensified. Both the President and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have taken to Twitter.

In a show of political strength, the newly Democratic House has sent several bills to the Senate to reopen the government. But, Mitch McConell, the Senate Majority Leader has not allowed them to the floor for a vote.

“The last thing we need to do right now is to trade pointless show votes across the aisle,” said McConnell, during a floor speech. “We agreed we wouldn’t waste the Senate’s time on show votes related to government funding until a global agreement was reached that could pass the House, pass the Senate, and which the president would sign. … That’s how you make a law.”

For now, the impasse continues. National parks, government offices and agencies remain closed and hundreds of thousands of employees face mounting expenses and no paychecks.

“Until people know what he’s going to be willing to deal with or agree to it’s really hard to negotiate with him, and I think that’s the frustration that the Democrats in congress have, they keep putting things on the table, they think they have a deal with him and then he changes his mind,” said Nelson.

Neither party trusts the other. Politics is always a battle of wills, public perception, and ideology. But, right now, federal workers are the ones paying the price.