The Republicans of the US House of Representatives saved the Government’s furniture this Friday with a new temporary financing proposal to avoid the closure of the Administration, which would have deprived the federal Government of the ability to have the necessary funds to meet their financial obligations (for example, the payment of public salaries). Although it must now be sent to the Senate, the proposal approved by the House, which provides for three months of funding, is the third presented since Tuesday night, after the first two – one, with bipartisan support, and the second, only Republican and with the support of Donald Trump—were defeated by the overwhelming majority of Democrats and several dozen hard-line Republican legislators. The vote, with a majority endorsement – 366 legislators supported the text, compared to 34 no’s and 29 abstentions – took place six hours before the deadline for the closure to become effective.
The president of the House, Republican Mike Johnson – the author of the three projects – had announced early in the afternoon a new plan that would temporarily finance federal operations and aid in the event of a natural disaster, but would postpone until the new year. the main demand of President-elect Donald Trump – expressed in the second agreement – to increase the debt ceiling. The agreement reached, however, barely manages to amend the feeling of chaos and legislative and partisan misrule, which increased as the hours passed, while Trump redoubled his demands.
“There is unanimous agreement that we have to move forward,” Johnson told reporters as he left a closed-door meeting of the House Republican caucus after the lunch break. “I’m not going to detail its specifics, because we have to finish a couple of things first, but I hope it goes ahead. There will be no government shutdown,” he assured. Relieved by the result of the vote, Johnson called the law a “very important legislative document,” but also a “necessary step to bridge the gap and get us to that moment when we can put our fingerprints on the final decisions on spending for 2025″, ensuring that things are going to be “very different around here” when Republicans take control of both chambers of Congress in January.
that combined a three-month extension of government funding, $110 billion in disaster and agriculture aid and other measures with a two-year suspension of the debt limit — the amount the government can borrow, with authorization from the Congress, to meet its financial obligations—the latter a last-minute demand from Trump to finance some of his electoral promises.
The third proposal or plan C temporarily puts the modification of the debt limit on hold, since any increase is anathema to hard-line Republicans because it implies greater public spending. It is also a red line for Democrats, hence the confluence in the vote of the blue caucus and the almost four dozen Republicans on Thursday. Interests were also reconciled in the final agreement, since, if this extension had not been approved, the Democratic Administration would have paid the bill for the closure.
The so-called plan C combines three different measures in a single package: financing the Government, allocating aid for natural disasters and allocating agricultural assistance. Out of the equation, or the devilish sudoku, Trump’s main demand momentarily remains, the increase in the debt ceiling. This Friday, the president-elect redoubled his insistence that this provision be included in any agreement, and if not, “that the closure begin now.” His statement could not be clearer: “If there has to be a closure, it better be now with Biden” still in the presidency. Trump will take office on January 20.
Although they “optimistically” celebrated the principle of agreement reached, Senate Republicans have also been furious at what they described as a “shit show, dysfunctional and fiasco” of the House, which has shot down two proposals to finance the Government in less of 48 hours. At the behest of his property , but the waterway of the ultramontanes, aligned around the Freedom Caucus.
If the Administration had been shut down, the military would not have received their Christmas pay, nor would the millions of Americans who depend on a Social Security check, among other administrative dysfunctions. All federal agencies would have been affected, and in fact, according to CNN, the White House Office of Management and Budget was already sending additional guidelines to these bodies on preparations for the closure. Each department and agency has its own procedures to determine how many employees should be furloughed and which are considered essential, as well as what activities should be temporarily canceled. About 875,000 civilian federal workers would have been placed on automatic leave, while another 1.4 million, essential workers, would have had to continue working, most of them without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, in an analysis of data from September. The workers would have received their back pay slips once the year ended. impasse.
In her daily press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre explained why President Biden had not spoken publicly about the imminence of a government shutdown. “The president doesn’t have to fix this. “It is the Republicans who have to fix the mess they have caused,” he declared. However, both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris returned to Washington this Friday from the places where they had planned to spend the weekend.
