Congress adopts a text that temporarily avoids a budgetary paralysis

Funding for several federal administrations, which was due to expire at midnight Friday evening, must be extended for six weeks.

Without this text, thousands of American civil servants would be forced into technical unemployment, particularly air traffic controllers. In the United States, Congress adopted a long-awaited provisional budget measure for the federal state on Thursday January 18, pushing back the much-feared specter of “shutdown”.

After the Senate, the House of Representatives adopted the text so that the funding of several federal administrations, which was to expire Friday evening at midnight, be extended for six weeks. The text must still be promulgated by President Joe Biden, a formality.

American elected officials were under pressure to quickly vote on this measure. The text gives them time to agree on a long-term budget, and on the details of expenditure.

Disagreements over defense and immigration

The text voted on Thursday was the subject of fierce negotiations between Republicans and Democrats. In early January, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, announced an agreement with the Democrats on the total amount of the state budget for the 2024 fiscal year, establishing a limit on federal spending at around 1.7 trillion of dollars.

The disagreement between the two parties concerns expenditure items. Joe Biden has made a request for an additional $106 billion in the budget, mainly to help Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Israel. The leaders of both parties in the Senate are proponents of supporting Kiev, but a number of Republican lawmakers in the House say such support is not in the United States’ interests. Another thorny subject: the influx of migrants at the border with Mexico. Republicans and Democrats alike agree on the existence of a crisis but differ on the response to be made.