WASHINGTON – United States President Joe Biden yesterday signed a stopgap bill passed by Congress hours ahead of a midnight deadline to avoid forcing the government to shut down due to a lack of funding.
The House of Representatives voted 254 to 175 to keep the lights on for another two months with a resolution that had already advanced comfortably from the Senate.
The congressional approval was a rare show of cross-party unity to avert a crippling shutdown, as Democratic leaders struggle to overcome fierce infighting over Biden’s domestic agenda.
“This is a good outcome, one I’m happy we are getting done,” Chuck Schumer, the top Democratic senator, told colleagues on the chamber floor ahead of both votes, which were never in serious doubt.
“With so many things to take care of here in Washington, the last thing the American people need is for the government to grind to a halt.”
The rare example of bipartisan cooperation comes with Democratic leaders trying to hammer out a deal over Biden’s faltering US$3.5 trillion (RM14.65 trillion) social spending package, which has no Republican support, and a bipartisan US$1 trillion infrastructure bill.
Democratic progressives and moderates are entrenched in a war of words over the programmes, as Republicans enjoy the disarray from the sidelines with one eye on next year’s midterm elections.
The Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill is due for a crucial vote in the House that appears to have no chance of passing, with the Democratic left wing in open revolt.
The progressives do not trust that centrists, who object to the size and scope of the larger spending package, will honour an agreement to pass the legislation once infrastructure is across the line.
The US is close to defaulting on its US$28 trillion debt, with 19 days to go until the Treasury exhausts its ability to obtain new loans.
No one in the leadership of either party has spelled out a clear way to avoid the crisis, which would tank the US economy and roil world markets.
Republicans are demanding that Democrats – whom they regard as profligate over-spenders – carry the political burden of running up the debt on their own as they control Congress and the White House.
But, Democrats are against using the arcane budget process known as “reconciliation” to pass the extension without Republican support.
It would take three to four weeks, they argued, making it a non-starter.
The House passed a debt limit hike on Wednesday on a party-line vote, but it will be dead on arrival in the Senate thanks to Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s opposition. – AFP, October 1, 2021
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