The US government is partially shut down for the first time in 17 years.
The shutdown will potentially put up to 1m workers on unpaid leave, closing national parks and stalling medical research projects.
Federal agencies were directed to cut back services after politicians could not break a stalemate over an emergency spending bill.
"This shutdown was completely preventable. It should not have happened," President Barack Obama wrote in a letter to government employees.
After House Republicans floated a late offer to break the deadlock, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rejected the idea.
He said Democrats would not enter into formal negotiations on spending "with a gun to our head" in the form of government shutdowns.
The political dysfunction at the Capitol also raised fresh concerns about whether Congress can meet a crucial mid-October deadline to raise the government's $16.7 trillion (€12.4 trillion) debt ceiling.
Both parties tried to deflect responsibility for the shutdown.
President Obama accused Republicans of being too beholden to Tea Party conservatives in the House of Representatives and said the shutdown could threaten the economic recovery.
If Congress can agree to a new funding bill soon, which Mr Obama insists not be tied to the reforms, the shutdown would last days rather than weeks, with relatively little impact on the world's largest economy.
But no signs of compromise emerged immediately as the Democratic-controlled Senate formally rejected an offer by House Republicans to break the logjam.
The political stakes are particularly high for Republicans, who are trying to regain control of the Senate next year.
Polls show they are more likely to be blamed for the shutdown, as they were during the last shutdown in 1996.
Some government offices and national parks are shut, but spending for essential functions related to national security and public safety will continue, including pay for US military troops.
"I think it's outrageous. You know these guys are put into office to help the people, not to hurt them," said federal worker Ronald Jackson, who commuted 55 miles in to work at the Treasury Department only to find the office empty.
"If we're not getting paid, they shouldn't get paid."
In the hours leading up to the deadline, the Democratic-controlled Senate repeatedly stripped measures passed by the House that tied temporary funding for government operations to delaying or scaling back the healthcare overhaul known as Obamacare.
The Senate instead insisted on funding the government until 15 November without special conditions.
Whether the shutdown represents another bump in the road for a Congress increasingly plagued by dysfunction or is a sign of a more alarming breakdown in the political process could be determined by the reaction among voters and on Wall Street.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed about one-quarter of Americans would blame Republicans for a shutdown, 14% would blame Mr Obama and 5% would blame Democrats in Congress, while 44% said everyone would be to blame.
An anticipated revolt by moderate House Republicans failed to materialise yesterday after House Speaker John Boehner made personal appeals to many of them to back him on a key procedural vote, said Republican Representative Peter King of New York.
There are fears the conflict could spill over into the more crucial dispute over raising the federal government's borrowing authority.
Mr Obama said negotiating over the demands would only encourage future confrontations, and Democrats are wary of passing a short-term funding bill that would push the confrontation too close to the deadline for raising the debt ceiling.
"The bottom line is very simple - you negotiate on this, they will up the ante for the debt ceiling," Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said.
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