Government shutdown: Senate approves U.S. funding measures in December to postpone potential debt-ceiling crisis

Washington-Parliament took a major step towards avoiding a partial federal closure when the Senate passed a bill to retain government funding until December 3. The House of Representatives was expected to follow soon.

Voting helps avoid one crisis, but another crisis as political parties delve into the controversy over how to raise government borrowing limits before the United States risks a potentially catastrophic default. Just delay.

The Senate approved the short-term funding bill with 65-35 votes.

Democrats continue to open government as they struggle to reach President Joe Biden’s top domestic priorities at the finish line, including a bipartisan $ 1 trillion infrastructure bill at risk of stalling in the house The work for was the background.

Democrats are focusing on Biden’s agenda, retreating from the confrontation over debt restrictions on the government’s funding bill, deciding to lift the borrowing cap on Republican claims. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the United States would probably face a financial crisis and recession if its cap was not raised by October 18.

Republicans say Democrats have their own votes to raise debt limits, and Kentucky Republican leader Mitch McConnell insists.

But the most pressing priority facing Congress was to keep the government running after the current budget year ended Thursday midnight. Passing the bill will spend more time on legislators to create spending measures to fund federal agencies and the programs they manage.

The Short-Term Spending Act also provides approximately $ 28.6 billion in disaster relief to those recovering from hurricane Aida and other natural disasters, helping Afghanistan’s refugees from the 20-year war between the United States and the Taliban. Useful.

“This is a good result and we are delighted to have achieved it,” said Senate leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y. Said. “Washington has a lot of care, so the last thing Americans need is a government outage.”

Once funded by the government, albeit temporarily, the Democratic Party will fully pay attention to the need to raise the federal borrowing cap, which currently amounts to $ 28.4 trillion.

The United States has not defaulted in modern times, and historically both parties have voted to raise the cap. The Democratic Party has joined the majority of the Republican Senate three times during President Donald Trump’s term. This time, the Democrats wanted to handle both priorities in one bill, but the Senate Republicans blocked that effort on Monday.

By raising or suspending debt limits, the federal government can pay off debt that has already arisen. It does not approve new spending. McConnell said Democrats extended their debt limits using the same budget tools that Democrats are using to expand their social safety net programs and pass $ 3.5 trillion in efforts to tackle climate change. Insisted that it should be passed. He repeated the warning when the Senate opened Thursday, even if the Democrats labeled the option “non-starter.”

“We can fund the government today because the majority have embraced reality. The same will need to happen with debt restrictions next week,” McConnell said.

The House Democratic Party submitted an independence bill late Wednesday and suspended debt restrictions until December 2022. Schumer said he would submit a bill to the senator, but the bill is almost certain to be thwarted by Republican filibuster.

The discussions made in both houses on debt caps followed a similar theme.

“You’re more interested in punishing Democrats than maintaining our credibility, which is what I’m really struggling to move,” said Jim McGavan, Commissioner of the House of Representatives Rules Committee. Long, D-Mass. Told Republicans. “The idea of ​​not paying an invoice just because you don’t like (Biden’s) policy is the wrong way to go.”

The Republicans did not hesitate to argue that they were responsible for raising their debt limits because the Democrats chose to break through their political priorities.

“As long as the majority of Democrats continue to insist on spending money on fist delivery, Republicans will refuse to help raise debt caps,” Republican Rep. Tom Cole said.

The Treasury has taken steps to protect cash, but when it runs out of cash, it has to rely on income to pay its obligations. That would probably mean a delay in payments to social security recipients, veterans, and civil servants, including military personnel. A think tank, the Bipartisan Policy Center, predicts that the federal government will not be able to meet about 40% of the payments it should pay in the coming weeks.

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Associated Press writer Brian Slodysko contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2021 By AP communication. all rights reserved.



Government shutdown: Senate approves U.S. funding measures in December to postpone potential debt-ceiling crisis

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