The U.S. federal government shutdown barely hurts… Senate and House of Representatives Provisional Budget Handling

The U.S. Congress managed to avoid the federal government’s temporary shutdown at the last minute.

According to US media on the 30th (local time), the U.S. Senate today passed a bill for provisional spending to support the federal government through December 3, with a vote of 65 in favor and 35 against. The budget was passed two hours later by the House of Representatives with 254 votes in favor to 175 against, and was signed by President Joe Biden shortly thereafter.

The reason that the provisional budget bill was passed from the votes of the House and Senate to the president’s signature in just one day is because the federal government shutdown has become a reality. The U.S. government starts a new fiscal year in October, and if the budget for fiscal 2022 is not processed by the last day of September, when fiscal year 2021 is over, the federal government will cease operations from October 1 and hundreds of thousands of government employees including civil servants will be lost. I had to go on a leave of absence. Even during the Donald Trump administration, the federal government shut down for 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019 due to conflicts between the opposition parties over the budget for the Mexican wall.

Fortunately, the fire was put out on the same day. The federal government was allowed to operate normally until early December, giving Congress time to process its fiscal 2022 budget. However, the turmoil is likely to continue as Democrats and Republicans disagree over the federal debt ceiling increase and the social welfare budget.

Failure to raise the federal debt ceiling, which currently stands at $28.78 trillion, raised concerns that the federal government could default on Oct. 18. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, speaking before the Senate Financial Services Committee, warned that the federal government’s emergency measures are likely to run out by October 18, warning of a possible national bankruptcy.

In the case of the $4.7 trillion budget proposed by President Joe Biden, the infrastructure budget ($1.2 trillion) is left to vote in the House of Representatives after both parties agree and pass the Senate. However, it is difficult to be optimistic about the passage of Congress because the progressive Democrats are holding on, saying that it cannot be handled separately from the social welfare budget ($3.5 trillion), and the Republican Party also strongly opposes it, saying it is too much.

Kim Pyo-hyang reporter suzak@hankookilbo.com