Two months of respite.
The US Senate on Thursday adopted a partial funding measure for the federal government aimed at postponing the specter of budgetary paralysis until early March.
The House of Representatives must now vote on the same text, and if adopted, will send it to Joe Biden's desk for promulgation before Friday evening midnight, the date of the expiration of the financing of part of the federal state.
Otherwise, thousands of civil servants would be forced into technical unemployment, including thousands of air traffic controllers.
American elected officials were under pressure to quickly vote on this measure and thus avoid this famous partial "shutdown", while Washington finds itself under the threat of a snowstorm on Friday and the House of Representatives has already canceled the votes planned for that day. -there.
This bill will allow the government to continue financing state spending until the beginning of March, which gives elected officials time to agree on a larger budget and the details of spending.
“If both parties continue to work in good faith, we can avoid a
shutdown
without last-minute whims or unnecessary anxiety for so many Americans,” the Democratic majority leader said in a speech. Senate, Chuck Schumer.
After tough negotiations
The recurring inability of Congress to adopt a budget for the fiscal year (which began four months ago) illustrates the dysfunctions within the American institutional apparatus.
And financing measures adopted for a short duration are often used to avoid budgetary paralysis.
The text voted on Thursday was the subject of tough negotiations between Republicans, the majority in the lower house, and Democrats, the majority in the upper house.
Dozens of elected Republicans in the House, from the ultraconservative fringe, are expected to vote against the temporary measure.
The expected support from elected Democrats should, however, allow it to be adopted.
In early January, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson announced an agreement with Democrats on the total amount of the state budget for fiscal year 2024, setting a limit on federal spending at around $1.7 trillion. of dollars.
The disagreement between the two parties concerns expenditure items.
Joe Biden thus formulated a request for an additional $106 billion in the budget, mainly to help Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Israel.
Leaders of both parties in the Senate are proponents of supporting Kiev, but a number of Republican lawmakers in the House say such support is not in the United States' interests.
Another thorny subject: the influx of migrants at the border with Mexico.
Republicans and Democrats alike agree on the existence of a crisis but differ on the response to be made.
The former particularly wish to limit the right to asylum and strengthen expulsion measures.