The threat of a long paralysis of the federal state receded significantly on Friday after the adoption in the lower house of Congress of a budgetary text with broad support from elected Democrats and Republicans alike.
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The Senate must now also adopt this text, without assurance that a vote cannot take place before midnight (5 a.m. UT Saturday), the time at which the UNITED STATES will find themselves in an effective situation of “ shutdown “. The broad support of elected officials from both camps gave hope, however, that this possible paralysis would be resolved quickly.
A “ shutdown » would mean technical unemployment for hundreds of thousands of civil servants, the freezing of several social benefits or even the closure of certain nurseries. An extremely unpopular situation that many elected officials have assured they want to avoid at all costs, especially as Christmas approaches.
The text adopted in the House of Representatives ensures funding for the federal government until mid-March and notably includes more than $100 billion in aid intended for American regions recently devastated by natural disasters.
A first version of the text torpedoed by Musk and Trump
This sum was already present in a first text announced Tuesday by the Republican President of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, following negotiations with the Democrats. The agreement would have made it possible to repel any threat of “ shutdown “, but was spectacularly torpedoed the next day by Elon Musk Then Donald Trump.
The richest man in the world, who became an ally of the Republican billionaire, launched a virulent burst of posts on his social network kill text “. The president-elect followed suit in the evening and denounced a text “ ridiculous and extraordinarily expensive “.
This twist took Congress by surprise and forced those responsible for the negotiations to start from scratch. He also gave a glimpse of a Trump 2.0 presidency even before the Republican took office on January 20. With a style – similar to his first mandate – not bothering with conventions, even if it means causing a certain chaos.
Elon Musk’s resounding opposition also illustrated the growing influence of the boss of SpaceX and Tesla on major political decisions. To the point, for certain elected Democrats, of ironizing about a “ President Musk », with which Donald Trump would be reduced to the role of vassal.
No increase in the debt ceiling
Main person responsible for the negotiations, Mike Johnson was pressed on one side by the Democrats to return to the text on which they had agreed, and on the other by certain elected conservatives who refuse en bloc any text which does not include a budget cut to compensate for the new aid.
If the text Friday evening was proposed by the Republican camp, no Democrat in the lower house voted against it, while 34 Republican elected officials opposed it. In view of the divisions on the right and the voting rules, the influential Republican elected official James Comer warned Thursday that for Congress to adopt a budgetary text, it would be necessary “ obviously have support on the Democratic side “.
The new plan voted on Friday does not involve raising the United States debt ceiling, while the absence of such a provision in the first text had been the main reason for Donald Trump’s opposition. The president-elect had even made it a sine qua non condition for any new budget agreement, otherwise he would fight “ until the end ” against.
He still had not reacted Friday evening on this new plan, but Mike Johnson assured after the vote that he was “in constant contact » with the president-elect and that he was “ happy with the result “. Elon Musk greeted him “ the good job » from the President of the House of Representatives to renegotiate the budgetary text downwards.
Each party pointed the finger at the other to attribute responsibility for a possible paralysis.
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