The countdown is on again.
For the fourth time in just a few months, the United States Government faces the risk of a partial shutdown of the Administration.
After three successive extensions, there is still no agreement to approve the pending budget laws.
And the deadline ends on March 1 for part of the departments and March 8 for the rest.
Given this situation, Joe Biden summoned congressional leaders to the White House this Tuesday.
The president not only wants funding to maintain public services, but is also pursuing the passage of a law with more aid for Ukraine.
Biden receives this Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. local time (5:30 p.m. in mainland Spain) the president of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson;
the Senate majority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer;
to the Democratic minority leader in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, and to the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell.
The president has reserved just over an hour in his official agenda for a meeting that the vice president, Kamala Harris, also attends.
The White House has not released the agenda for the meeting, but its spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, pointed out in her press conference this Monday the two most pressing matters.
“What the president wants to see is that we want to make sure that the national security interests of the American people are put first,” he said, apparently referring to the $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other priorities. of national security.
The text was approved by the Senate, but has an uncertain future in the House of Representatives.
“And we also want the Government not to close.
It is a basic priority or duty of Congress to keep the Government open.
So that's what the president wants to see.
He will have those conversations.
Obviously, I'm not going to get ahead of the president's agenda and what he's going to discuss.
But these things are incredibly important” continued Jean-Pierre.
Aid to Ukraine apparently has a large majority to be approved by the House of Representatives, after a result of 79 votes in favor and 29 against in the Senate.
But to be approved, the president of the House needs to clear the way and put it to a vote.
It seems more complicated to approve the budget laws in the few pending days.
In principle, this March 1, funding from the Administration ends, including the Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, and Veterans Affairs.
Funding for the rest of the federal Administration ends on March 8, including the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State, although pension payments and essential public services remain ongoing in any case. .
The last negotiating round on the budget was closed without success this past weekend.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote a letter to members of his caucus laying out the situation: “While we hoped to have the legislation ready this weekend to give members time to review the text, it is now clear "That Republicans in the House of Representatives need more time to organize," he noted.
“Unfortunately, extreme Republicans in the House of Representatives have shown that they are more capable of causing chaos than passing laws.
“It is my sincere hope that, faced with a disruptive shutdown that would harm our economy and reduce the security of American families, President Johnson will once again stand up to the extremists in his caucus and do the right thing,” Schumer added, in a message that Johnson did not like at all and that the
speaker
described as “counterproductive.”
“Leader Schumer's letter fails to mention that many of the points still being debated come from new Democratic demands that were not previously included in the Senate bills,” Johnson tweeted.
“This is not the time for petty politics.
“We House Republicans will continue to work in good faith and hope to reach a result as soon as possible, even as we continue to insist that our own border security must be addressed immediately,” he added.
The hardline wing of the Republican Party has been demanding large spending cuts, something that causes division within the majority group and makes Johnson's task difficult.
That division and the refusal of the most extremists to reach agreements with the Democrats ended up costing Johnson's predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, his job.
The United States does not have one budget law, but a dozen, but is systemically unable to approve them in time for the start of the fiscal year, on October 1.
The usual thing is to approve a budget extension, called a continuing resolution, while the laws that authorize the expenses of the year are processed, which usually follow a cumbersome and complex procedure, full of amendments.
McCarthy was dismissed in a motion of no confidence after having approved a first budget extension to avoid the partial closure of the Administration.
Johnson has already approved two other extensions in which the rejection of his supporters has been growing in the House of Representatives.
In the third, 107 Republicans voted in favor and 106 against, while among Democrats there were 207 votes in favor and only two against.
The time for extensions is also running out.
In the agreement that Biden reached with McCarthy to raise the debt ceiling, it was agreed that if there were no approved budgets by April 30, an indiscriminate 1% spending cut would be applied in all items compared to the previous year.
That is something that neither Republicans nor Democrats want, especially senators.
Some of the representatives of the hard Republican wing of the Lower House, however, prefer that scenario to that of increased spending.
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