(Washington) – On Saturday, the Republican Party unveiled an unconventional temporary plan to finance the US federal government, threatening within a few days the possibility of budget paralysis (“shutdown”).
Republican Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the House, said this two-part plan is “a necessary text to put House Republicans in the best possible position to defend conservative victories.”
“The bill would end the ridiculous holiday tradition of introducing huge, jam-packed spending bills just before the Christmas holidays,” Johnson wrote in detail.
US media reported that under the unusual plan, some bills needed to keep federal services open will be passed through a short-term bill until January 19, while the rest will be postponed to February 2.
This would buy Congress time to pass various spending bills, without allocating funding for Israel, Ukraine and border security, according to media reports.
Some Republicans are already complaining that the plan does not provide the funding cuts they seek. Therefore, it is not certain that the party, which has only a simple majority in the House of Representatives, will be able to adopt it, let alone the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The White House called the proposal “a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns.”
Presidential spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement, “House Republicans are wasting valuable time on a non-serious proposal that has been severely criticized by members of both parties.”
The federal state budget ends at midnight on Friday.
Photo by Alex Brandon, associated press archive
House Speaker Mike Johnson
Without an agreement by that date, the world’s largest economy will suddenly slow down, 1.5 million government employees will be deprived of their salaries, and air traffic will be disrupted.
The last negotiations over the US federal budget, at the end of September, had already plunged the institution into chaos. Trump loyalist elected officials, angry that Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy reached a last-minute agreement with the Democratic camp, fired him, a completely unprecedented situation.
It then took three weeks for elected officials to agree on a new “president,” Mike Johnson. For three weeks, the US Congress was unable to pass any law.
This representative-elect from Louisiana, unknown to the general public and with very limited experience within the Republican general staff, must contend, like his predecessor, with a handful of Trump supporters, ultra-strict budget orthodoxy, and Democrats, who refuse to dictate economic policy. to the country by aides to the former president.
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