(Washington) The US House of Representatives adopted the federal state budget for 2024 on Friday, provoking the fury of conservatives who in return threatened to dismiss the head of the institution, Mike Johnson.
Elected official Marjorie Taylor Greene, close to Donald Trump, announced that she had filed a motion to dismiss this Republican leader, accusing him of “treason”.
However, Congress must at all costs adopt this $1,200 billion budget before midnight to avoid a sudden drying up of the federal state’s finances.
But the timetable is still very vague on the holding of a vote in the Senate, fueling fears 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.
However, several federal employees have already been notified of the risk of this paralysis taking place.
“Let’s finish the job today,” urged Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.
Impeachment proceedings
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 disputes between the camp of Democratic President Joe Biden and certain Republicans in favor of a very strict budgetary orthodoxy.
Conservatives strongly denounced on Friday the agreement, concluded between the White House and congressional officials, which was put to a vote on Friday.
“This is an atrocious attack on the American people,” said Trumpist elected official Marjorie Taylor Greene, a few minutes before filing her motion to oust the leader of the House, Mike Johnson, despite being a member of her party.
The former “speaker” of the House, Kevin McCarthy, had already suffered similar budgetary negotiations only a few months ago. The fifty-year-old was dismissed in a historic vote in October, accused by elected officials very close to Donald Trump of not defending the interests of his party.
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 plan to ban American funding to UNRWA has been strongly 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.
The bill under debate Friday also contains hundreds of millions of dollars for Taiwan.
As well as 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.
The text finally 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.