USA: Shutdown averted – Congress is right transitional budget

A shutdown of the US government was averted a few hours before the deadline: Both chambers of the congress have approved a preliminary expenditure law.

After the House of Representatives, the Senate also approved the transitional budget on Friday (local time) with 54 to 46 votes and forwarded it to Trump for signing.

The financing of the government agencies is thus secured by the end of September. Without agreement, among other things, employees in parts of the public administration would no longer have been paid.

After day -long heated debates, the leading democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, gave in on Thursday evening. He would vote to adopt the bill, said Schumer. The design does not like him, but he believes that the government’s closure would be the worse result.

Several democratic senators voted in the afternoon to allow the draft for the final vote and thus promoted it via the 60-vote hurdle. The final coordination was considered a matter of form, for them the 53-seat majority of the Republicans in the Senate.

The Republican -controlled House of Representatives had already passed the template that has largely left the expenses in the current budget year by September 30th at around $ 6.75 trillion. The US military receives around six billion more dollars, while the non-military programs have to accept a reduction of $ 13 billion.

Schumer’s maneuver triggered shock waves in the Democratic Party and opened the division of the members how to oppose Trump as long as you are in the minority. A significant part of the democratic party base had asked MPs and senators to reject the draft budget because it provides for numerous drastic spending cuts.

The Republican Senator Ted Cruz accused the Democrat after the vote in the Senate that they organized a “political theater to delay the inevitable and cause instability”.

In the event of a budget lock, the authorities have to decide which employees are sent on the forced vacation and who should continue to work, since their work is classified as essential for the further functioning of the authority. After such a classification, Elon Musk’s government department for state efficiency (Doge) would have a strong position to relieve publicly staff, whose activity is not classified as essential.

Actually, the congress must have passed the financing of the government authorities for the coming financial year every year until October 1. However, this period is missed regularly, so that instead, transitional households with a short term must be agreed. The necessary negotiations regularly ensure political shachers.

A shutdown leads to restrictions on government services, impairments, for example in air traffic and in numerous public institutions such as national parks and state museums. Since 1981 there have been more than a dozen of these standstings in the United States, the longest lasted during Trump’s first presidency at the turn of 2018/2019.