The United States federal government remains partially shut down after the Senate failed yet again to advance competing funding measures pushing the nation into another week of legislative impasse and operational disruption. Both the Republican and Democratic proposals to keep the government funded beyond the deadline were rejected falling short of the sixty votes required to overcome a filibuster in the upper chamber. This continued deadlock which began at the start of the fiscal year is rooted in deep partisan division primarily over healthcare funding and federal spending levels. With hundreds of thousands of federal employees furloughed or working without pay the pressure is mounting on lawmakers to find a resolution to a crisis that is
