The game of chicken failed. Neither side blinked. Now millions will pay the price, SIA reports quoting CNN.
Americans watched a colossal failure by Congress overnight and the shutdown of their government.
For weeks, the House and the Senate blamed and bickered, each claiming they're standing up for what the public wants.
In the end, it led to the one outcome nobody wanted -- one that will stop 800,000 Americans from getting paid and could cost the economy about $1 billion a week.
"Agencies should now execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations," the Office of Management & Budget said in a note it sent to federal employees.
This is the first time the government has shut down in nearly 18 years. The last time it did, the stalemate lasted 21 days.
Now, the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate will try to see if they can reconcile their two versions of the spending plan at the heart of the issue. So far, each has refused to budge.
House Republicans insist the spending plan for the new fiscal year include anti-Obamacare amendments. Senate Democrats are just as insistent that it doesn't.
Obamacare, as President Barack Obama's signature healthcare plan is known, isn't directly tied to funding the government. But it's so unpopular among a group of Republicans that they want it undercut, if not outright repealed.
"Healthcare law is the most insidious law known to man," Republican Rep. Todd Rokita of Indiana said.
Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the shutdown gives the United States a black eye.
"It is a dangerous message to the world," he said. "We tell other nations that we believe that they have to have certain disciplines. And yet, we cannot ultimately keep our own budget open and the nation and its government functioning."
Amid the finger-wagging and fulminating, the new health insurance went into effect on schedule Tuesday.
"The Affordable Care Act is moving forward. You can't shut it down," said a post on Barack Obama's verified Twitter feed.
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