United States – On Wednesday, The US Congress has three days to avoid a partial government shutdown. This is due to the disagreement in opinion between the two parties, and the divided Republican majority in the House is preventing lawmakers from doing their job of providing financing for federal agencies.
Leaders Clash on Funding
The leaders of both chambers, Democrats and Republicans, came out of what they called a heated meeting with President Joe Biden on Tuesday promising to prevent a government shutdown, but they couldn’t agree on how to do it—either by passing a fourth short-term stopgap or by reaching an agreement covering the fiscal year that started on October 1, as reported by Reuters.
Despite a consensus last month on $1.59 trillion in discretionary spending for the fiscal year, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, have swapped accusations.
“We believe that we can get to agreement on these issues and prevent a government shutdown. And that’s our first responsibility,” Johnson told Reuters on Tuesday.
With a thin majority of Republicans in the House and hardliners in their party who are looking for funding cuts and new policies, a few of which are related to abortion and food assistance, some Democrats have refused to accept them. Failure to reach an agreement will trigger a partial government shutdown beginning Saturday.
March 8 Deadline Looms
Secondly, a similar deadline for the bigger set of federal agencies clocking out on March 8 is also approaching.
Mr. Schumer tore away the curtain on Tuesday, reporting that they came up with something, but no definite outcome has yet.
“There is no reason for a shutdown, not if both sides in both chambers cooperate in a bipartisan way,” Patty Murray, the Democratic chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said on Tuesday.
National Debt Concerns
The deadlock has arisen at a time when the amount of accumulated national debt exceeds $34.3 trillion and is increasing by leaps and bounds. The agency Moody’s predicted in September that the country’s credit rating would be hurt by the government shutdown, as reported by Reuters.
Aside from the government funding bills, Congress is groping to pass a $95 billion national security bill, subsequent to the new aid for Ukraine and Israel, that Biden laments. A bill passed in the Senate, but it is blocked in the House.