From the FT the splendour of contemporary governance is on display again:
The US government will start to shut down numerous agencies on Tuesday and send tens of thousands of workers home after Republicans and Democrats failed to bridge their differences over the budget.
A series of votes in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democratic Senate left the two sides stuck at the same position at midnight on Monday where they had started the day, with conservatives refusing to pass a short-term budget without a delay in Barack Obama’s health law.
About 650,000 federal employees will be placed on unpaid leave, and many government programmes and services will be curtailed.
Anxiety increased among Republicans as the midnight deadline loomed that they would be blamed in any voter backlash over the budget stand-off in Washington.
Well it might. Bloomie reports that there’ll be no employment report this Friday if the madness persists.
