The US government is heading towards a shutdown that will disrupt services and hurt workers.
The Republican-led House and Democratic-led Senate were seeking to avoid America’s fourth partial government shutdown in a decade this weekend.
However, they failed to pass thorny spending legislation that President Joe Biden can sign into law to keep federal agencies afloat.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s last-ditch plan to keep the government open collapsed on Friday after Republicans refused to support the bill.
Hardline Republicans rejected the package despite its steep funding cuts of nearly 30 per cent to many agencies and severe border security provisions.
If a shutdown takes place around two million military personnel and more than two million civilian workers will not be paid.
“It’s not the end yet; I’ve got other ideas,” Mr McCarthy told reporters as he Congress after the bill failed to pass.
In a closed-door meeting, Mr McCarthy said that Republicans would have to either vote in favour of the House bill or the Senate’s version - or risk being blamed for a shutdown.
But the rebel lawmakers asserted they would not budge for anything less than a long-term spending bill with their priorities addressed.
“This take it or leave it or I’ll blame you won’t work on us,” South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, a moderate who voted against the House bill on Friday, wrote on X.
“I’m in this for the long run and have no problem taking on DC to do it.”
The last “government shutdown”, for 35 days between December 2018 and January 2019, affected a range of services from passport applications to bin collections at national parks, and cost the US economy around $3billion.
Right wingers insist they will only lend their votes to the Government if Mr Biden agrees to their demands, and have threatened to unseat Mr McCarthy if he strikes an unfavourable deal with Democrats to avoid the shutdown.
Republican hardliners had called for FBI spending to be dramatically reduced and also demanded an end to “woke policies” at the US defence department including a raft of “diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives”.
Firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene has demanded an impeachment inquiry into the US president and funding to be withdrawn from Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who has brought 44 of 91 criminal charges against former president, Donald Trump.
