WASHINGTON – Two weeks into a government shutdown with no end in sight, tensions are high and getting higher among the people with the power to end it.
At the U.S. Capitol this week, two Democratic senators confronted the Republican speaker of the House outside his office, accusing him of "covering up for pedophiles" by avoiding a vote to release more information on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
On the same day, the Democratic House minority leader separately yelled at a Republican congressman to "keep your mouth shut." And that's just the start of it.
The testy scenes underscore an increasingly bitter rapport between America's two major political parties, as the first government shutdown in seven years approaches the start of a third week. Lawmakers were making little effort to resolve their differences in public. The House of Representatives has not taken a vote in more than three weeks and the Senate has yet to work through a weekend since funding lapsed at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
At the same time, the stakes of the shutdown are rising. On Wednesday, Oct. 15, military service members will miss their first paycheck since the shutdown crisis began. Funding for a key food aid program relied on by millions of mothers and infants will likely run out of money in the coming days. And key economic data needed to calculate Social Security payments for more than 70 million Americans next year doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon.
