Senate stalemate sends US government shutdown into second week

Two separate funding proposals failed on Friday as mass lay-offs and sweeping cuts loom over the government.

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Two separate spending proposals - one from the Democrats and one from Republicans - failed to reach the required 60-vote threshold.

With both sides deadlocked, the White House on Friday said it would be left with the "unenviable task" of mass lay-offs to keep essential government services operating if the shutdown continues, which Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described as "fiscal sanity".

The scope of those potential lay-offs remain unclear but the White House has been in discussions with the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have dug in their heels on the main point of disagreement: healthcare. Democrats have hoped to capitalise on the impasse to ensure health insurance subsidies for those with low-income do not expire and reverse the Trump administration's cuts to the Medicaid health programme.