Government shutdown live updates; IRS to furlough nearly half its staff, Senate rejects deals

Expiring health care subsidies remain key sticking point

House Speaker Mike Johnson and other House Republicans are set to hold a news conference at 10 a.m. on Wednesday to address the shutdown, while House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and House Democrats hold their own news conference at noon ET.

Republicans continue to blame Democrats on the shutdown for refusing to support a Republican-backed bill that would fund the government through Nov. 21. Democrats have demanded that any funding bill reverse Republicans’ recent cuts to Medicaid and extend subsidies in the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire at the end of the year.

More: Trump says he's open to striking deal with Democrats on extending health care subsidies

Trump on Monday said he’s open to negotiating a deal with Democrats to extend the health care subsidies. But Republican leaders in Congress have repeatedly said they won't negotiate health care policy with Democrats until the government is reopened. 

White House claims loophole in guaranteeing back pay

Withholding payments to furloughed workers when they return would mark a dramatic departure from previous shutdowns, including the government's last shutdown in 2019, when Trump was president.

Trump’s threat came as the White House floated a new legal analysis claiming the 750,000 employees furloughed during the shutdown are not entitled to back pay when they return. A Trump administration official confirmed the analysis to USA TODAY.

More: President Trump says some furloughed federal workers ‘don’t deserve’ back pay

The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, which was passed during the last shutdown, says that federal workers who are furloughed during a lapse in government funding “shall be paid for the period of the lapse.” The law states that it applies to any government funding lapse after Dec. 22, 2018.

But the White House argues in a new legal memo that this law does not automatically cover all furloughed workers because of an amendment approved nine days after its original passage in January 2019, according to Axios, which first reported the White House's new opinion about back pay.

The amendment states that furloughed workers would be paid back "subject to the enactment of appropriations Acts ending the lapse."

Yet the White House's new interpretation undermines the Trump administration's own Office of Personnel Management guidance, which released a memo in September that said furloughed workers would get paid.

“After the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were required to perform excepted work during the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those work periods,” the OPM memo says.

White House shifts tariff funds to extend low-income food program: What to know about WIC

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on social media on Tuesday that tariff funds would be used to continue paying for a food-assistance program for low-income families.

The Women, Infants and Children program was projected to run out of money this week because of the government shutdown, Leavitt said. The program provided about $7.2 billion in aid last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But the administration identified funds from the tariffs on steel and aluminum to keep the resource funded. “The Trump White House will not allow impoverished mothers and their babies to go hungry because of the Democrats' political games,” Leavitt said.