FLASH
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As the Speaker of the House of Representatives scrambles to meet the demands of hard-line Republicans and overcome the situation created by a recent rebellion, some Democrats warn of a difficult road to passing legislation that will guarantee the functioning of to the government.
Republican lawmakers held a vote last week on guns and a vote on sanctions against one of former President Donald Trump's most vocal critics, Democratic lawmaker Adam Schiff. These two processes helped the House of Representatives to resume work, although the punitive measures proposal failed, as about 20 Republican lawmakers came to the aid of Schiff.
The most significant development of the week, however, was an announcement by Republican leaders that was made without much fanfare. Republicans said they intend to draft bills for spending quotas on government programs and agencies, with lower figures than agreed to in the deal reached with the White House last month. The deal managed to avert an unprecedented federal government debt default.
Mr. McCarthy said that the figures he had negotiated with the White House represented the ceiling, and that "you can lower them further anyway". Republican lawmaker Kay Granger, who chairs the House Budget Committee, later issued a statement saying she would seek to cap non-defense spending at the fiscal year 2022 spending level, saying the deal on debt "set a spending ceiling - a ceiling, not a floor".
The announcement was welcomed by Republicans who had criticized Speaker McCarthy, a Republican lawmaker from California, and who had opposed a deal on the debt ceiling because they felt such a deal would allow excessive spending. But the latest statement was immediately met with criticism from Democrats who say an attempt to skirt the numbers set out in the debt ceiling deal would virtually guarantee a deadlock between the Senate and the White House, and possibly even a shutdown. of government funding when the current fiscal year ends at the end of September.
"It's a prelude to a government shutdown -- what they're orchestrating," said Democratic lawmaker Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
The new dynamics create the potential for another showdown in Washington that could rock the economy, just months after lawmakers managed to avert a last-minute default on the federal government's debt.
Partial government shutdowns have become more common in recent times; the longest of them was during the administration of former President Donald Trump, who sought funds for the construction of a border wall between the United States and Mexico. With President Joe Biden facing a Republican-majority House of Representatives as he runs for re-election in 2024, and with some conservatives oblivious to the damage a government shutdown could cause, the likelihood of an escalation of the standoff over government spending seems almost certain. /VOA
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