New Delhi: The US government is on the verge of a possible shutdown after hardliners in the House of Representatives rejected a temporary funding deal Friday. This means that unless the Congress passes a funding extension by Saturday evening, thousands of federal employees including troops will be put on unpaid leave starting Monday.
The bill to avoid a government shutdown till the end of October was defeated in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives 232 to 198. This was because at least nine hardline Republicans stridently opposed a stopgap measure proposed by their leader and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Apart from extending the funding, the bill also proposed deep spending cuts and border restrictions for immigrants. Neither of those two measures were expected to get the Democrats on board.
Significantly, the Republicans control the House of Representatives by a slender margin of nine seats.
If the Congress fails to pass a funding extension past Sunday 12.01 am Eastern Time, thousands of “non-essential” workers could be furloughed until the situation is resolved, according to media reports. It will also disrupt everything from national park services to scientific research.
After the House was adjourned Friday, Speaker McCarthy said it could still pass a funding extension without the conservative policies that the Democrats oppose.
But Republican holdouts appear unrelenting, maintaining that the focus should be on writing detailed spending bills for the entire year instead of stopgap measures — even if this means a federal government shutdown.
“What does work is rolling up our sleeves and getting onto these single subject bills and moving them,” Matt Gaetz, representative for Florida’s first congressional district, said after Friday’s vote, according to a Reuters report.
The vote also exposes deep divisions within the GOP’s moderate and right-wingers — something that Speaker McCarthy has been having to contend with over the last few months. The GOP stands for ‘Grand Old Party, another name for the Republicans.
“This is not an impossible puzzle to solve,” BBC quoted Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as saying. “Speaker McCarthy needs to stop letting the Maga (Make America Great Again) radicals drive his decisions.”
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‘Can’t play politics while troops stand in the breach’
More negotiations and votes are expected Saturday, when the House meets again. But as the uncertainty continues, US President Joe Biden warned that a shutdown would result in the armed forces being affected.
“We can’t be playing politics while our troops stand in the breach. It’s an absolute dereliction of duty,” said Biden at a function Friday.
Meanwhile, the Democrat-dominated Senate passed another short-term funding bill that could help avoid shutdown until 17 November, giving the Congress more time for a longer-term budget. But for the bill to turn into a law, it needs to pass through the House, where Republican hardliners have vowed to oppose it and threatened to remove McCarthy as House Speaker if he relies on Democratic votes.
“I will be voting against this continuing resolution,” the BBC quoted Gaetz, who has been leading the group’s charge against the bill, as saying Friday. Republicans like Gaetz believe that the stopgap measure “weakens” the party’s position on “strong border policies”, according to the BBC.
On his part, McCarthy has not committed to bring the bill passed by the Senate to the House. But he has said that in order to avoid a government shutdown, Democrats need to address the issue of border security in their bill.
“Every member will have to go on record on where they stand,” McCarthy told reporters, according to the BBC. “Are they willing to secure the border or do they side with President Biden on an open border and vote against a measure to keep (the) government open?”
Meanwhile, economists have warned of the effects that a government shutdown would have on the US economy. Rating agency Moody’s has already warned that it could hurt the US credit rating and “underscore the weakness of US institutional and governance strength”, according to media reports.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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