If lawmakers don’t secure a spending deal before Friday midnight, all nonessential government functions will pauseWhat is the US debt ceiling?US politics – live updatesA government shutdown looms after Republicans in Congress failed on Thursday to pass a pared-down spending bill. The potential shutdown could disrupt Christmas travel and deliver a blow to the US economy just a month before Donald Trump returns to the White House.Lawmakers face a last-minute scramble to secure a new deal before the Friday midnight deadline – or all nonessential government functions will pause.A 21-day partial closure in 1995 over a dispute about spending cuts between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, the Republican speaker, that is widely seen as setting the tone for later partisan congressional strugglesIn 2013, when the government was partially closed for 16 days after another Republican-led Congress tried to use budget negotiations to defund Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act, widely known as ObamacareA 34-day shutdown, the longest on record, lasting from December 2018 until January 2019, when Trump refused to sign any appropriations bill that did not include $5.7bn funding for a wall along the US border with Mexico. The closure damaged Trump’s poll ratings Continue reading...