Donald Trump uses govt shutdown to dole out punishments

US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (centre), Republican from South Dakota, speaks along with the Republican Congressional leadership outside the US Capitol in Washington DC, on Wednesday. PIC/AFP

US President Donald Trump has seized on the government shutdown to reshape the federal workforce and punish detractors by threatening mass firings of workers and suggesting "irreversible" cuts to programmes important to Democrats.

Rather than simply furlough employees, as is usually done during any lapse of funds, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said layoffs were "imminent". The Office of Management and Budget announced it was putting on hold roughly $18 billion of infrastructure funds for New York's subway and Hudson Tunnel projects in the hometown of the Democratic leaders of the US House and Senate.

With no easy endgame at hand, the standoff risks dragging deeper into October, when federal workers who remain on the job will begin missing paychecks. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated roughly 750,000 federal workers would be furloughed on any given day during the shutdown, a loss of $400 million daily in wages.

The House is set to resume session next week. The Democrats are holding fast to their demands to preserve health care funding, and refusing to back a bill that fails to do so, warning of price spikes for millions of Americans nationwide. The Republicans have opened a door to negotiating the health care issue, but GOP leaders say it can wait, since the subsidies that help people purchase private insurance don't expire until year's end.

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