[1/2]US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaks to members of the media as the deadline to prevent a government shutdown approaches on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, on September 26, 2023. Reuters/Leah Millis acquires licensing rights
WASHINGTON, Sept 26 (Reuters) – Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday called on President Joe Biden to agree to tougher border restrictions to prevent a sweeping U.S. government shutdown for the fourth time in a decade.
Republican McCarthy’s proposal is unlikely to resolve the high-spending fight that could idle hundreds of thousands of federal workers on Sunday, as Biden and his fellow Democrats, who control the Senate, have already rejected Republican border plans. Are.
With just five days left, both houses are rapidly going separate ways.
The Senate is preparing to vote on a bipartisan spending bill that would keep the government running after existing funding runs out at midnight Saturday (0400 GMT Sunday), giving negotiators more time to agree on spending figures for the full year. will get.
Meanwhile, McCarthy is drafting a stopgap spending bill that would restart construction of the US-Mexico border wall and tighten immigration policies, a signature policy of former President Donald Trump.
Those policies are certain to be rejected by Biden and the Senate. But on Tuesday McCarthy called on the president and Democrats to reconsider.
“To keep the government open, if the president is willing to change part of his plan on this border, we can keep this government funded going forward,” McCarthy told reporters.
“Let’s do something at the border, keep the government open and show this country that we can get this right, and we’ll solve the rest of our problems as we go along.”
If the two sides do not reach an agreement, hundreds of thousands of federal workers would be furloughed and a wide range of services, from releasing economic data to nutrition benefits, would be suspended starting Sunday. In Washington, the National Zoo says it will have to scale back its farewell party for three giant pandas before they return to China.
The shutdown has raised concerns at credit rating agency Moody’s, although it is unclear whether it will affect America’s creditworthiness, as previous shutdowns have not had a significant impact on the world’s largest economy.
It’s also impacting the 2024 presidential election, with Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, happy to talk about the shutdown.
Biden and McCarthy had aimed to end the shutdown this year by agreeing to $1.59 trillion in discretionary spending for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 at the end of a standoff over the federal debt ceiling in May.
Lawmakers to McCarthy’s right have since rejected that number, demanding a $120 billion cut, even as more moderate members of his party, including the top Senate Republican, have expressed support for the agreed plan.
This is only a fraction of the total US budget, which will be $6.4 trillion for this fiscal year. Lawmakers are not considering cuts to popular benefit programs like Social Security and Medicare, which are projected to grow dramatically as the population ages.
Biden himself has called on House Republicans to honor McCarthy’s deal.
Bowing to their concerns, McCarthy has scheduled a procedural vote Tuesday evening to take up four spending bills for the upcoming fiscal year that reflect conservative priorities and have no chance of becoming law.
If Tuesday’s vote is successful, lawmakers will try to pass the four measures in the House at the end of the week. They won’t defund the entire government or prevent a shutdown.
Republicans control the House by a slim majority of 221–212 and have few votes left, especially since some Republican hard-liners have threatened to oust McCarthy from the leadership role if he relies on Democratic votes to pass legislation. Will exclude from.
This could complicate any efforts to pass a stopgap spending bill and avert a shutdown.
Congress has shut down the government 14 times since 1981, though most of those funding gaps have lasted only a day or two.
Reporting by David Morgan and Makini Bryce, additional reporting by Moira Warburton; Written by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, Bill Burkroot and Grant McCollum
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