(Finance) – Il US Congress approved one buffer law that will avoid the shutdown until the first week of March. After the green light from the Senate with 77 yes and 18 no (all Republicans), yesterday, on the eve of the deadline set at midnight today, the House approved the short-term financing law with 314 votes in favor and 308 against. The bill will now go to the White House for President Joe Biden’s signature.
The agreement on a short-term budget law to maintain funding for the federal government until the first week of March and thus avoid the shutdown was reached last weekend by the leaders of the US Congress. This is a plan that contains no funds for Ukraine or Israel and which allows the government to obtain the funding it needs until March. In detail the so-called “continuing resolution” postpones the deadline for funds for the departments of Agriculture, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Energy and the Food and Drug Administration to March 1. At the same time, the funding deadline for all other departments, including Defense, Labor and Education, is moved to March 2.
Already the week before Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and it Speaker of the House Mike Johnson they had announced that they had reached an agreement on the spending bill but the far-right Trumpists in the House had rejected it and asked for changes. What is blocking the agreement – which provides for 886 billion in defense spending and 704 billion in other sectors – is the issue of aid to Israel and Ukraine on which the extremists do not want to give in unless there is an increase in funds for the fight against illegal immigration and to deal with the crisis on the border with Mexico.