On Saturday, lawmakers were preparing for a potential government shutdown in just one week. While congressional Republicans disagree on how to move before the current funding agreement expires at midnight on Saturday, the administration of President Joe Biden is sending instructions to departments to start preparing.
Extreme House Republicans are pushing for a federal shutdown, according to Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary for the White House. The US government is one week away from shutting down due to a budget standoff, which President Joe Biden on Saturday blamed on “a small group of extreme Republicans” and urged legislators to address.
Joe Biden And Kevin McCarthy’s Understandings
Joe Biden said that he and senior House Republican Kevin McCarthy had previously reached an understanding on the level of government expenditure when speaking at a Congressional Black Caucus awards dinner. Before federal funding expires on September 30, House Republicans are preparing for one final push to approve a number of party-line budget legislation.
The GOP’s border plan is included in the interim measure, which Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) argued was necessary because “we are missing a chance to beat up Joe Biden on the border and even have a victory,” said a source to Axios.
Biden’s Statement About Funding
The funding of the government, according to Mr. Joe Biden, is one of the “most basic responsibilities of Congress,” and he accused “extreme Republicans” of breaking a prior debt ceiling agreement that contained spending caps. In an effort to garner support for a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government open, House Republicans continued their planning over the weekend and intend to advance a package of appropriations measures this week.
The Office of Management and Budget of the government recommended agencies to revise their shutdown strategies, including the personnel to be furloughed and the services to be cut back. The nation’s defense, law enforcement, Social Security, and Medicare will continue operating as usual even if some government shuts down next weekend.
The financial security of hundreds of thousands of employees at federal parks, museums, and other locations would be jeopardized by a government shutdown, but Biden, who is up for reelection, may also suffer substantial electoral consequences. The White House requests that $24 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Kyiv be included in any budget legislation that is approved by Congress.
Democrats and Republicans in the Senate both support this approach, but some House members are vehemently against it. Four funding measures for the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, and Agriculture are scheduled to be brought to the floor of the House for a vote on Tuesday.
The legislation, which contains numerous conservative policy riders and would lower spending below the levels established earlier this year in the bipartisan debt pact, would not pass the Democrat-led Senate or prevent a government shutdown.
A McCarthy supporter, representative Garret Graves (R-La. ), said that GOP leaders are “trying to get this process on a path where we can truly reduce spending.” In response to a question from a reporter, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said, “That’s our plan,” as he left the Capitol on Saturday. “We only need an extra 45 days to finish the rest of our firm, but that would be a great stopgap.”
Speaking at the CBC’s Phoenix Awards event, Mr. Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris fervently argued for their reelection in 2024. In a prospective rematch, a recent CBS News survey showed Mr. Biden trailing former President Donald Trump by one point, 49% to 50%. Only one-third of those polled indicated they thought the president, who is 80, could complete a second term.
While this was going on, other Republicans criticized a tiny group of their party’s members for obstructing efforts to avert a shutdown. They pushed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to collaborate with Democrats on a budget proposal that could pass Congress.
Representative Don Bacon, R-Neb., said on MSNBC that “we are going through a lot of tricks right now to get 218 (votes) and you’re left with five (Republicans) who decline to do it,” he added, “Let’s just accept that, get rid of them, and cooperate with the Democrats.”
Regularly, the budget vote in Congress degenerates into a stalemate between the two parties, with each side leveraging the threat of a shutdown to extract concessions from the other—until a compromise is reached at the very last minute.
Republicans understand the necessity for a short-term budget bill to give lawmakers more time because no one believes that Congress will manage to completely fund the government over the next seven days.
Representative Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), leader of the House Administration Committee, informed reporters that a stopgap period of time will be required to finish the appropriations bills.
According to Graves, it is still unclear how long that plan will keep the government-financed. He said that House Republicans are debating it for “between 14 and 60 days.”
According to conference co-chair and delegate from the Virgin Islands, Stacey Plaskett, “The Black Caucus is not for one age group, one group of Black Americans, or even just for African-Americans.” It’s for our allies who want to comprehend our history, the difficulties we face, and how they may contribute to uplift all Americans.
The greatest gathering of African Americans in the nation takes place at the caucus’ annual legislative conference. 13 Black parliamentarians created the CBC, sometimes known as the “conscience of the Congress,” in 1971.
On the social networking platform X, Joe Biden stated that “800,000 Americans were furloughed or worked without pay the last time there was a government shutdown.” Enjoy your weekend, though.
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