The United States is preparing for a government shutdown, as members of Congress rush to negotiate a final budget that will keep federal funds in the new year.
On Friday, US media reported that the Office of Management and Budget, led by outgoing President Joe Biden, had already signed off on government agencies to prepare for the shutdown.
Government funding is expected to end at midnight, Saturday at 12:01am East Coast time (05:01 GMT).
But at a press conference on Friday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre gave a hint, saying that a government shutdown would not happen if a bilateral agreement was reached.
“It's early. We believe that there is still time to prevent this from happening,” said Jean-Pierre. “Our goal is to keep the government open. That's what we want to see.”
The final Trump-Biden debate
However, as congressional debate continued throughout the day, Democrats and Republicans exchanged accusations, with the budget set to be the final battle between Biden and his successor, President-elect Donald Trump.
Mr Trump, a former Republican president who is due to take office again on January 20, was instrumental in breaking a third-party order on Wednesday to keep the government open until March.
He has repeatedly said that, if the suspension is to happen under Biden, his Democratic opponent.
“If there is going to be a government shutdown, it should start now, under the Biden Administration, not on January 20, under 'TRUMP,'” the president-elect said Friday. social media post.
Mr. Biden, so far, has not spoken directly to the public about the budget presentation, but at a press conference on Friday, Mr. Jean-Pierre confirmed that his words represent those of the President.
He criticized Trump and allies like tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who was among the most prominent Republicans to speak out against bipartisanship.
The press secretary also called on House Speaker Mike Johnson, another Republican leader, to “clean up the mess” after the collapse of the bipartisan deal.
“There is a bipartisan agreement on the table. They were moving forward. The speaker agreed to do this, to move forward with a bipartisan agreement. And he stopped this because of what the president-elect said and what Elon Musk said,” Jean-Pierre told a press conference.
“They wanted to pave the way for their billionaire friends.”
Dealing with bills
As of Wednesday, the bipartisan legislation weighed in at 1,547 pages. It included $10bn in farm aid and $100bn in disaster relief, following another hurricane season in the US.
Other policies set aside funding for child care, gave members of Congress a 3.8 percent pay raise to increase the cost of living, and allowed the District of Columbia to build a stadium for the Washington Commanders football team on federal land.
However, Republicans failed at the length of the bill, and Trump criticized it as having “democracy contributions”.
On Thursday, the party unveiled its Trump-approved version of the budget freeze bill, designed to temporarily shut down the government. Embroider until 116 pagesThe bill kept the disaster relief money and the money that was given to farmers — but it left out a lot of other things.
In short, it also decided to raise the national debt until January 2027, in the midst of the incoming Trump administration. This was the most important thing that Trump brought into the negotiations.
What is the loan amount?
The debt governs the amount of money the government can borrow to pay its debts, but it was not originally part of the budget negotiations. The budget was about government spending, not borrowing.
However, with the deadline to raise the debt fast approaching on January 1, Trump has expressed his fear that his administration will have to deal with it.
In recent days, the president-elect has urged Republicans to extend the debt under Biden's watch — or cancel it altogether.
“If the Republicans try to pass an unfair resolution without all the bells and whistles of the Democrats that will destroy our country, all it will do, after January 20, is bring about the Debt Limit chaos in the Trump Administration.”, Trump. he wrote on social media on Wednesday.
“Everything has to be done, and fully discussed, before I take office on January 20, 2025.”
Critics on the left, however, have warned that eliminating the debt could make it easier for Trump to implement tax cuts on time. Some criticized it as a way to get unlimited government debt.
In the end, in a vote on Thursday night, the law approved by Mr. Trump did not pass in the House of Representatives, where 235 members voted against it and 174 votes in favor. Joining the opposition were 38 Republicans.
“The Musk-Johnson proposal is not serious. It's ridiculous. The MAGA Republicans are forcing us to shut down the government,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said earlier this week, interested in Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
Another Democrat, Representative Pramila Jayapal, told reporters that she does not believe debt relief should be a “negotiated option” in the current bills.
“You want to discuss the debt? Good. It will be a discussion that comes at the end of the spring, not in the 11th hour of the agreement that has already been agreed, which has been discussed on what is going on,” he said on Thursday.
As of Friday, negotiators in the House and Senate had walked away from a bill that would have included changes to the debt ceiling.
What is a government shutdown?
Unless a bipartisan deal can be reached and passed Friday night, the government could be forced to shut down all non-essential businesses early Saturday.
The threat of a government shutdown has been a recurring theme in US politics in recent years – and the consequences could be dire, especially for government workers, contractors and Americans who rely on federal programs.
When the government shuts down, hundreds of thousands of non-essential government workers are laid off until the budget is passed.
In most cases, they would receive refunds as soon as they restarted, but for now, the military and other government agencies say they are struggling to make ends meet.
Other government services that have been deemed non-essential may also be suspended. A freeze could mean a temporary suspension of food and safety inspections, criminal charges in federal court, and access to national parks and monuments.
The ability of low-income families to access the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, could also be affected if the suspension is extended.
On Friday, Jean-Pierre emphasized the dangers of the impending shutdown in a statement to the press.
“The consequences of this would hurt our veterans and it would hurt vulnerable Americans across the country,” he said. “That's what we're talking about. Republicans need to do their job, and they need to support their side of the deal here. “
The last government shutdown occurred during the first term of the Trump administration, in late 2018 and early 2019.
It lasted 34 days – the longest shutdown of any in modern US history. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) comparison that funding gap during that period delayed nearly $18bn in government spending.
Due to the slow pace of the economy, the suspension also reduced gross domestic product (GDP) by about $3bn in the last quarter of 2018 and $8bn in the first quarter of 2019.
Although most of the financial losses were recovered, the DRM Budget Office had expected $3bn would not be.
Republicans against Trump
Political leaders should also focus on this week's budget talks.
A year earlier, in October 2023, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, was ousted from his leadership position in the first round of voting.
Members of his own party called for his resignation, after McCarthy issued a resolution to continue funding the government and avoid a shutdown.
McCarthy's departure threw the Republican convention into disarray for weeks, and Johnson eventually became his successor, taking the speaker's post.
But some politicians think Johnson could share the same, especially when Congress meets in January.
Other Republican officials are also in the running. Representative Chip Roy of Texas was among the Republicans most vocal in their opposition to the budget approved by Trump on Thursday.
He accused his fellow Republicans of being “very apathetic” about reducing the government deficit, comparing them to Democrats.
“I'm very disappointed in a party that campaigns on the economy and I'm interested in going to the American people and saying you think this is an economic problem,” Roy said.
But his strong criticism of the Trump-backed proposal drew criticism from the president-elect himself, who criticized Roy on social media.
“The most unpopular Congressman from Texas, Chip Roy, is on his way, as usual, to another Big Republican Victory – All because of his own self-image,” Trump said. he wrote. “Republican opponents must be eliminated.”
Trump has done it before to be invited for Republicans who oppose his debt plan to be “primary” – in other words, voted in the primaries for the federal election in 2026.