US risks government shutdown next week

WASHINGTON — Less than two months since the United States federal government narrowly avoided running out of funding, the deeply divided Congress once again faces a tight deadline to approve a new budget — just one week.

Neither the Democratic-controlled Senate or the Republican-led House of Representatives has passed a bill to extend government funding, which expires at midnight next Friday into Saturday.

Without an agreement by Nov 17, the world's largest economy will instantly begin pumping the brakes: Nearly 1.5 million government employees will go without pay, most federal facilities including national parks will be closed, and sectors such as air travel could be forced to slow down.

Most elected officials on either side of the aisle hope to avoid this extremely unpopular outcome — the so-called government shutdown.

The last time Congress faced a funding deadline, at the end of September, it was plunged into chaos.

Republican allies of former president Donald Trump, furious that their leadership reached a deal with Democratic President Joe Biden to extend funding, successfully moved to oust House speaker Kevin McCarthy.

McCarthy's unprecedented removal left the lower chamber paralyzed for almost three weeks while Republicans struggled to find a new leader, even as global events such as the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine spurred calls for quick congressional action.

The party eventually chose as its new speaker Mike Johnson, a little-known representative with only limited leadership experience, Agence France-Presse commented.

He is expected to unveil over the next two days a stopgap spending measure aimed at keeping federal agencies open after current funding expires on Nov 17.

Lawmakers said they expect the Louisiana Republican to unveil a continuing resolution, or CR, to avert a partial government shutdown as late as Saturday. A House vote is tentatively expected on Tuesday.

"I wish the House would just get to work," Biden told reporters as he departed Washington on Thursday.

Like his predecessor, Johnson will face a delicate juggling act, balancing the demands of a small but influential group of hardline Republicans who want strict fiscal tightening, with Democrats who control both the Senate and White House.

"The only way we avoid a shutdown is with bipartisan cooperation, just as it was true in September and it will be true in the future," said top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer on Thursday.

Washington is now well acquainted with these last-minute battles over funding, and often finds a compromise just before the deadline, or shortly after.

Johnson can afford to lose no more than four Republican votes from his slim 221-212 House majority on legislation opposed by Democrats. But he is under pressure from Republican hardliners to lumber any CR with spending cuts and policy riders Democrats uniformly reject.

"If there's any kind of CR, there has to be spending reductions," Representative Chip Roy, a prominent conservative, told reporters.

But Representative Tom Cole warned that Johnson may need a "clean" CR at current funding levels to steer well clear of a shutdown.

"We don't have a lot of time to fool around with failure," Cole said. "You may stumble into a shutdown without meaning to do it at all."

In fact, the Republican representative who launched the campaign to oust McCarthy cited the September agreement as his "last straw".

Hardline demands for steep spending cuts and policy riders including abortion restrictions have split Republicans for much of 2023, with Republican centrists pushing for a more bipartisan approach that can win support in the Senate.

The US experienced its longest shutdown during the Trump presidency, for several weeks beginning in December 2018, at a cost to the country's GDP estimated to be over $3 billion.

In June, the US faced a race against the clock to raise the nation's borrowing limit, risking an unprecedented default on the US debt.

Under the agreement struck between then-speaker McCarthy and the White House, the so-called debt limit will not be reached again until after the November 2024 elections.

Agencies Via Xinhua