(Washington) American parliamentarians are launched on Friday in a race against time to adopt the state budget before midnight and thus avoid a very unpopular paralysis.
Both houses of Congress must at all costs adopt this $1,200 billion finance law to avoid a sudden drying up of state finances.
A vote in the House is scheduled for around 11 a.m. local time.
The timetable is more vague in the Senate, fueling fears about the possibility of a paralysis, even very temporary, of the federal state, the famous “shutdown”.
It is certainly very common for last-minute agreements to be reached in Congress, particularly on budgetary issues.
But several federal employees have already been notified of the risk of this paralysis taking place.
Unpaid soldiers
The list of potential consequences of a state paralysis is long: unpaid soldiers and transport security agents, administrations at a standstill, certain aid frozen, etc.
A situation extremely unpopular with Americans and most of the effects of which would be felt at the start of the week.
The United States has been struggling for several months over the final adoption of a budget, entangled in partisan quarrels, between the camp of Democratic President Joe Biden and certain Republicans, supporters of a very strict budgetary orthodoxy.
Congress has so far only succeeded in adopting a series of mini-laws to extend the federal budget by a few days, or a few months at most.
As soon as one of these mini-budgets is about to expire, as one of them should be on Friday, there is a risk that the federal administration will be partially shut down.
Funds cut for UNRWA
If passed, the bill presented Thursday would extend the US budget until the end of the fiscal year, September 30.
This 1012-page text, the result of very acrimonious negotiations, contains measures which would have strong repercussions abroad.
The text thus prohibits any direct funding from the United States to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, at the heart of a controversy since Israel accused 12 of its approximately 13,000 employees at the end of January of Gaza to be involved in the deadly October 7 attack perpetrated by Hamas.
The possible end of American funding has been widely criticized by the left wing of the Democratic Party.
“I will vote against this bill which prohibits aid to children in Gaza who are dying of starvation,” announced progressive elected official Ro Khanna in a message on X.
Several hundred million dollars are also allocated to Taiwan.
The bill also contains several measures related to immigration, an explosive subject in the middle of the presidential campaign. It provides, among other things, for the hiring of tens of thousands of border police agents.
Finally, it contains a litany of measures, not necessarily linked to the budget.
Like the ban on American embassies from flying the rainbow flag, the standard of the LGBT+ community, contrary to what some of them were accustomed to doing on the occasion of “pride month”.
A text adopted on March 9 had already made it possible to complete another part of the 2024 budget.