Lawmakers on Capitol Hill point fingers amid shutdown stalemate

WASHINGTON — On the official White House website Wednesday afternoon, a clock ticked up, measuring the duration of the government shutdown.

Along with it, a partisan accusation: “Democrats Have Shut Down the Government.”

The finger-pointing stretched into another day on Capitol Hill, where the Senate rejected stopgap spending bills from both sides of the aisle.

On the GOP-led bill, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was a ‘yes’ vote and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has said he opposes the plan because of concerns about the national debt, voted ‘no.’

Republicans propose funding the government until the third week of November, mostly at current levels, to buy time to work out a deal for the full year.

Democrats are calling for funding until the end of October, reversing Medicaid cuts Republic