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House Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Article informationAuthor, Antoinette Radford, Sam Corporal and Anthony Zircher Role, BBC
2 hours ago
Hours before the official date of the government shutdown in the United States, the House of Representatives was able to come up with a formula to pass the budget with short-term funding.
The new law passed by the House of Representatives guarantees the continuation of the work of federal government institutions and provides funding for them for approximately a month and a half, but the budget does not include the funding scheduled for Ukraine, which was approved in a previous vote.
The upper chamber of Congress, the Senate, must pass the bill for it to take effect, which does not constitute a major crisis.
The shutdown would have put tens of thousands of federal employees on vacation due to the lack of their salaries, would have led to the suspension of many federal services in all states, and would have effectively begun immediately after midnight on Sunday had the House of Representatives not passed the budget.
In a dramatic retreat, on Saturday evening, members of the opposition Democratic Party in the House of Representatives changed their minds and passed the budget bill, and the bill received the support of more Democratic representatives than Republicans.
Passing the budget was considered a painful blow to a group of extremist representatives in the House of Representatives, who were holding discussions to introduce cuts to the budget in order to support it during the vote.
A federal shutdown in the United States generally occurs when the two chambers of Congress disagree and are unable to pass a budget by a majority of votes.
With a simple majority for Republicans in the House of Representatives, and a majority of one Democratic member in the Senate, this makes an understanding between the party to pass any law necessary.
Several efforts have failed in recent weeks to pass the budget and avoid a government shutdown, by a group of hard-line representatives.
This group opposed the short-term spending item and tried to compensate for it with long-term spending, but after reducing it.
Council Speaker Kevin McCarthy was lax in relying on Democrats to pass the budget, until the last moments, considering that this agreement would anger hard-line Republican representatives.
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House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
The Democrats did not get everything they wanted in the new budget, and yet they voted for it, to ensure the provision of an additional budget for the war in Ukraine.
This file played a major role in putting pressure on the two parties to reach a quick formula with the aim of avoiding a government shutdown, and President Biden’s government has warned of a rapid impact on financing for the war in Ukraine if the general budget is not passed.
A White House official told CBS, the BBC’s regional partner, “We expect Mr. McCarthy, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who declared his full support for the war in Ukraine against Russia, and considered it illegal, unjustified, and an aggression against the Ukrainian people and sovereignty, to present… A new project as soon as possible.
Before the vote, chaos prevailed in the House of Representatives, and Democratic Party representatives said that they did not have enough time to read the latest amendments made by Republicans to the budget before voting.
It appears that Jamal Bowman, a member of the Council from New York, set off the fire alarm in one of the wings of the building to provide some time for his colleagues to read the amendments.
Since this act constitutes a crime under American law, a spokeswoman for Bowman denied doing so, saying, “How could he set off the fire alarm in the Congress building, while he was rushing time to reach the voting hall and cast his vote?”
Hakim Jeffries, Representative of the House of Representatives from the Republican Party, said that Republicans presented solutions to the Democrats to pass the law, after a group of extremist representatives tried to hijack Congress throughout the past year.
It is expected that the scene will be repeated again after about 45 days, with the end of the temporary budget, and the debate will return once again between Republicans and Democrats, in the two chambers of Congress.
But Matt Gates, a hard-line council member, said that the decision of Council Speaker Kevin McCarthy to cooperate with Democrats to pass the budget is supposed to be a red line, and if he crosses it, it will lead to a rebellion on the part of hard-line representatives.
But McCarthy challenged his opponents in his press conference on Saturday, saying, “If someone wants to pass a law against me personally, let him bring it. There must be an adult in the place.”
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2023-10-01 01:38:08
