Photograph by bclinesmith

The US federal government has begun a partial shutdown after politicians in Washington failed to agree a budget, with Republicans linking any deal to a delay for the implementation of Obamacare.

The Republican-led Senate made three separate attacks onthe Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, within the budget negotiations, with each one rejected by the Democrat-led House of Representatives, and President Obama making it clear he would veto any such tactic if it passed both houses.

Many commentators are blaming the Republican Party for holding the country to ransom to try and repeal or at least delay the implementation of Obamacare, which aims to address the issue of healthcare being more expensive in the US than anywhere else in the world. Republican politicians in Washington have long campaigned against any government involvement in healthcare, whilst at the same time receiving government funded healthcare themselves.

This is the first government shutdown in 17 years, and will force more than 800,000 federal employees to take unpaid leave, half of that number coming from civilian workers at the Department of Defence.

The effect of the shutdown could be felt across capital markets around the globe with the US dollar losing about half a percent of its value on foreign exchange markets, and the Down Jones and NASDAQ stock exchanges dipping by 1% as the markets opened. Goldman Sachs estimates that a three week shutdown could shave around 0.9% of US GDP for the quarter.

There was a last ditch attempt just before midnight last night to broker a deal, but Democrats said it was already too late to avoid a shutdown, with the White House’s budget office notifying federal agencies to begin a programme of “orderly shutdown” as the deadline approached.

One of the first suspensions from the shutdown was the @USCapitol twitter account, which tweeted:

President Obama put the blame directly on Republican politicians, but defiantly tweeted that Obamacare would be implemented even with the partial government shutdown, saying: