The “shutdown” was ultimately avoided in the USA. Just three hours before the deadline, Congress passed an emergency measure to temporarily continue funding the federal government – for 45 days – to avoid technical unemployment for civil servants and the suspension of food aid for certain recipients. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican Kevin McCarthy, had to come to an agreement with the Democrats, which earned him the wrath of his party’s hardliners.
Published on: 01/10/2023 – 8:31 p.m. Modified on: 01/10/2023 – 9:30 p.m
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The shutdown was ultimately avoided in the USA. To achieve this, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, had to reach a deal with Democrats enough to arouse the ire of some members of his party. Because the agreement, reached by a vote of 335 to 91, was approved by the majority of elected Republicans… but rejected by some Trumpists. A maneuver that could cost Kevin McCarthy his leadership position.
One of the leaders of the American hard right said this Sunday that he wanted to fire McCarthy. “I fully intend to file a motion to fire President (Kevin) McCarthy this week,” Florida elected official Matt Gaetz said on CNN.
“Go ahead,” Kevin McCarthy immediately replied on CBS. “I will survive this fratricidal initiative,” he assured. However, the day before the vote, McCarthy said he was aware he was risking his seat. In fact, Kevin McCarthy was elected leader of the House of Representatives after numerous negotiations with the Freedom Caucus.
For Julien Tourreille, researcher at the Observatory for the United States of the Raoul Dandurand Chair at the University of Quebec in Montreal, McCarthy’s ouster from the presidency of the House of Representatives is not yet obvious: “The majority of the Republican caucus has yet to decide to throw him out. And that is obviously not a given. »
The fact is: Even if McCarthy does not lose his position, Republicans are divided on this issue of the budget and the possible request. Even if they are already weakened by a narrow majority in the House of Representatives. “Perhaps Kevin McCarthy could keep his role as leader of the House of Representatives, but this suggests that there is an even greater conflict within this Republican Party than the one we are seeing now, with Trump as its protective figure,” warns Julien Toureille.
Washington “will not abandon” Ukraine.
The agreement to avoid a last-minute “shutdown” does not include aid to Ukraine, but that text is only temporary until elected officials find a permanent solution. We must vote again in 45 days to avoid the shutdown. The Trumpists demanded an end to aid to Ukraine and got it. The agreement confirmed by the Senate yesterday actually excludes the 24 billion that Joe Biden promised the country at war.
US President Joe Biden promised this Sunday that Washington would not abandon Ukraine and called on Republicans to stop “playing” with the threat of a “shutdown”.
“I want to say to our allies, the American people and the Ukrainian people: you can count on our support. We will not give up,” Joe Biden said in a televised address from the White House.
“There is a sense of urgency” to approve a new funding measure for Ukraine in the coming days and weeks, Joe Biden said, castigating Republicans who are calling for deep cuts to government spending. “Enough is enough. (…) I’ve had enough of risky activities,” he complained. “This policy (…) has to stop. There can’t be another crisis,” he added.
The Freedom Caucus, the group of lawmakers who are sowing chaos among Republicans
The list of members of the Freedom Caucus is not public, but the general consensus is that it is composed of approximately forty elected officials who joined by invitation. The bloc made up of Donald Trump’s surrogates has disproportionate power due to the very small Republican majority in the House of Representatives. It only takes a few elected officials to challenge the agenda of the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives. The group had been ordered by Trump to push for a “shutdown” unless it was successful on “all” of the budget issues under debate.
The Freedom Caucus has its origins in the ultra-conservative Tea Party movement that emerged after the election of Barack Obama. This year alone, 19 members nearly derailed the election of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and a handful of them caused a debt crisis that nearly led to a U.S. default. United States, the largest economy in the world. Kevin McCarthy was elected on the 15th ballot in January when his enemies in the Freedom Caucus finally agreed to support him in exchange for major concessions, including a return to allowing individual lawmakers to call a vote to remove the president Accuse Hall. While his practices can sometimes seem disturbing, his goal is clear: drastic spending cuts and a less interventionist state.
Recently, the group managed to reach the highest levels of the party: one of its founding members, Jim Jordan, became chairman of the powerful Judicial Affairs Committee. Jim Jordan was one of the initiators of the impeachment inquiry against Democratic President Joe Biden.
But the Freedom Caucus itself is not immune to division. So its members voted in July to expel an ardent Donald Trump defender, Marjorie Taylor Greene, for calling her colleague Lauren Boebert a “little bitch.” Still, Mick Mulvaney believes the group’s reputation as troublemakers isn’t entirely justified. “The Freedom Caucus has rules. Some are tacit, but most are written,” he wrote in a recent column.
(With AFP)
Also read: USA: “Important foreign policy issues can be held hostage by party political disputes”