On Tuesday, November 14, the House of Representatives approved an extension of America’s federal budget in hopes of averting the famous shutdown that paralyzed state government.
This text, supported by elected Democrats and Republicans, must be passed in the Senate by midnight Friday night to avert this threat. If nothing is done to extend the budget by that date, the country will suddenly slow down: 1.5 million civil servants will lose their salaries, air travel will be disrupted, and visitors to national parks will find their doors locked. .
Most elected officials in both camps do not want this extremely unpopular situation, especially as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches. But two months after narrowly avoiding shutting down part of the country, the world’s leading economy is once again teetering on the brink.
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Strong disagreements
Differences in Congress – between Republicans with a majority in the House of Representatives and Democrats with a majority in the Senate – are so great that, unlike most world economies, elected officials cannot currently vote on one-year budgets. Instead, the United States will have to make do with a series of one- or two-month mini-budgets.
Every time one of these budgets expires, everything has to be done again: bitter negotiations, extensively commented on social networks, threats, then a series of votes, in the House of Representatives, in the Senate…
It is very common for last-minute agreements to be reached on these financial laws. But the most recent negotiations over the American federal budget at the end of September plunged Congress into chaos. Trumpist elected officials were furious that then-Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy had reached a last-minute deal with the Democratic camp and fired him, a completely unprecedented situation.
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Two different deadlines
This time the agreement on the table provides for the budget to be extended for two different periods: one until mid-January and the other until the beginning of February. It was introduced by the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who is unknown to the general public and has very limited experience on the Republican staff.
The elected official from Louisiana says he’s still trying to find his way. “I’ve only been doing this job for three weeks,” he said at a news conference on Tuesday.
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In any case, he will be forced, like his predecessor, to contend with a handful of Trumpists, adherents of very strict fiscal orthodoxy, and Democrats who refuse to let the former president’s lieutenants dictate the country’s economic policy.
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These are the same conservative elected officials who brought the United States to the brink four months ago. After long negotiations between the Biden government and the conservatives, the leading world power was able to prevent a default at the last minute.
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