The United States is once again facing the danger of a political and financial impasse: Congress is threatening to paralyze the federal government in less than two weeks because it cannot agree on a new budget.
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Several competing budget bills are currently being debated in Washington, none of which have enough votes to pass the Democratic-majority Senate and the Republican-majority House.
Parliamentarians have until midnight on September 30 to reach an agreement, otherwise all funding for federal services will be suddenly cut.
Ministries, but also national parks, certain museums and a variety of organizations would be affected, which would push hundreds of thousands of workers into technical unemployment.
Despite the strong partisan divides, most elected representatives from both camps do not want this situation, which is extremely unpopular. But several Trump Party elected officials are determined to play spoilsport and are rejecting every bill on the table for now.
“With less than two weeks until the end of the fiscal year, extremist Republicans in the House of Representatives are playing with people’s lives,” the White House charged in a statement on Tuesday.
Help for Ukraine uncertain
This budget crisis could have a direct impact on the war in Ukraine: The White House has demanded that the finance bill passed by elected officials include $24 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Kyiv. An envelope supported by Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, but radically opposed by Trumpist elected officials in the House of Representatives.
“I will not vote to give a single dime to the war in Ukraine,” elected official Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is close to former President Donald Trump, said on X (ex-Twitter) on Tuesday.
Will his visit end the crisis? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will travel to the US capital on Thursday for new talks with President Joe Biden about supporting Kiev against the Russian invasion.
“At the very moment that President Zelensky comes to the United States to justify the need to stand firm against Putin, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives are essentially telling him to deal with it,” denounced the Senate Democratic leader at. Chuck Schumer.
The debt crisis in June
This is the second time in just a few months that the world’s largest economy has faced this threat of financial impasse.
After lengthy negotiations between the Biden administration and the conservatives, the United States avoided default in June.
A default would have been unprecedented, while the United States has already experienced several more or less long periods of “shutdown” or budget paralysis.
The longest “shutdown” to date in winter 2018 had particularly devastating effects on baggage checks at airports in the middle of the holidays.
This time, “every week of government budget paralysis will cost the American economy $6 billion,” predicts Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY.