Washington (AFP) - The US government shutdown entered its second week on Monday, with no sign of a deal between President Donald Trump’s Republicans and Democrats to end the crisis.

Democrats are refusing to provide the handful of votes the ruling Republicans need to reopen federal departments unless the two sides can agree on extending expiring “Obamacare” health care subsidies.

With the government out of money since Wednesday and grinding to a halt, Senate Democrats looked set to vote against a House-passed temporary funding bill for a fifth time.

The hard line taken by Democrats marks a rare moment of leverage for the opposition party in a period when Trump and his ultra-loyal Republicans control every branch of government – and Trump himself is accused of seeking to amass authoritarian-like powers.

With funding not renewed, non-critical services are being suspended.

Salaries for hundreds of thousands of public sector employees are set to be withheld from Friday, while military personnel could miss their paychecks from October 15.

And Trump has radically upped the ante by threatening to fire large numbers of government employees, rather than place them on temporary unpaid leave status as has been done in every other shutdown over the years.

Republicans are digging in their heels, with House Speaker Mike Johnson telling his members not even to come to Congress unless the Democrats cave.

“House Republicans think protecting the health care of everyday Americans is less important than their vacation,” Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement.

“We strongly disagree.”

- Red herring -

But Johnson said health funding was a red herring Democrats had wielded to force a shutdown, claiming to have addressed the issue in a sprawling domestic policy bill signed into law by Trump in July.

“Republicans are the party working around the clock every day to fix health care. It’s not talking points for us. We’ve done it,” Johnson told reporters at the US Capitol.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” would in fact strip 11 million Americans of health care coverage, mainly through cuts to the Medicaid program for low-income families.

That figure would be in addition to the four million Americans Democrats say will lose health care next year if Obamacare health insurance subsidies are not extended – while another 24 million Americans will see their premiums double.

Republicans argue the expiring health care subsidies are nothing to do with keeping the government open and can be dealt with separately before the end of the year.

As the shutdown begins to bite, the Environmental Protection Agency, space agency NASA and the Education, Commerce and Labor departments have been the hardest hit by staff being furloughed – or placed on enforced leave – during the shutdown.

The Transport, Justice, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs Departments are among those that have seen the least effects so far, the contingency plans of each organization show.

With members of Congress at home and no formal talks taking place in either chamber, a CBS News poll released Sunday showed the public blaming Republicans by a narrow margin for the gridlock.

Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said Sunday layoffs would begin “if the president decides that the negotiations are absolutely going nowhere.”

Trump has already sent a steamroller through government since taking office for his second term in January.

Spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, 200,000 jobs had already been cut from the federal workforce before the shutdown, according to the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service.