So unless something unexpected happens, at midnight tonight the government will cease all non essential functioning and furlough approximately 800k workers until such time as a new funding bill can be passed.
Boehner, Reid, and Obama have been holding negotiation sessions at the White House for the last three nights, and sentiment about "how it's going" seems to see-saw quite a bit, though at this point the sentiment seems to be strongly trending towards a shutdown.
The Democrats had originally agreed to $33billion in cuts to the operating budget, which was what the Republicans had demanded. After they supposedly reached agreement, however, the Republicans nearly doubled their demands, to $61billion in cuts. As I read the news, now, however, the actual dollar figure isn't so much in dispute any more so much as the partisan riders the Republicans are insisting on (one is to totally wipe out federal dollars for abortions -- which will incidentally defund Planned Parenthood);
Worth noting: this is NOT about Ryan's proposed spending bill. This shutdown will be ONLY about funding for this fiscal year, which, incidentally, is already half-over (making the cuts more and more drastic as time goes on).
Corrections:
The republicans produced a bill with 61 billion in cuts, but wanted more.
The democrats would only verbally agree to around 33 billion on the cuts in that bill, but drafted nothing.
The democrats were invited to introduce their own bill, and opted not to.
The republicans passed their bill in the house, though many wanted more cuts.
The bill stalled in the senate numerous times because the democrats would not vote on it and allow it to go to committee.
Howard Dean, Harry Reid, and Chuck Schumer all expressed a desire for the government to shut down so that they could use it politically going into the next election just as Clinton did.
This week the republicans invited Harry Reid again to introduce a bill that he would be willing to vote on, and the answer was no.
The 61 billion in cuts are useless. We need closer to a trillion now. Last month we spent 8X what we took in in revenue.
They are arguing over how to arrange the deck chairs as the Titanic sinks.