The U.S. government is now in its third week of a government shutdown with no compromise on the horizon. If no solution is reached by the end of this week, the shutdown will be the longest in the history of the U.S. government.  President Trump and his advisers have met with House and Senate leaders multiple times over the weekend, but the meetings were unfruitful.  President Trump plans to give a speech tomorrow night to argue his side of the shutdown.  At the time of this publication, however, the broadcast networks are still mulling over whether or not to televise the speech.

Meanwhile, one quarter of the federal workforce is either not working or working without pay.  This includes government workers from the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as numerous other agencies.  While the furloughed federal employees have always received back-pay after every previous shutdown, there is no such guarantee for the contract workers that make up a large share of the federal workforce.  

In addition to sapping the federal workforce of morale and pay, the shutdown is also  wasting money on a daily basis and trimming .1% of the national GDP every two weeks,  according to the White House's own economic adviser.  Vital government operations and services have also come to a grinding halt, as is well-documented by the Washington Post  here.

Meanwhile, President Trump's top advisers - including his Cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries, and top administrators - were scheduled to  receive around a $10,000 dollar pay raise over the weekend, though this pay hike was put on hold for the time being.