The American president-elect makes an agreement between elected Democrats and Republicans in Congress very uncertain, which would have made it possible to finance the federal state until mid-March and thus avoid the famous “shutdown”, before the fateful date of Saturday.
Donald Trump expressed his opposition to a budget agreement negotiated in the American Congress between Republican and Democratic elected officials on Wednesday, December 18, thus further raising the specter of a paralysis of the federal state by the Friday evening deadline. The Republican, who will return to the White House on January 20, rejoiced in a publication on his Truth Social platform that this bill “ridiculous and extraordinarily expensive” either in the process of “die quickly”. In a joint statement with his future vice-president JD Vance, he also asserted that any concessions to Democrats represented “a betrayal of our country” and that the Republicans should not allow themselves to be intimidated by the threat of this paralysis of the State, the famous “shutdown”.
Before that, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, had already attacked the agreement in a long series of posts on Wednesday on his social network X. “Kill the text!”wrote several times the billionaire, who campaigned alongside Donald Trump and was appointed by the latter to head a commission to slash public spending. “Any elected official in the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending plan deserves to lose their election in two years”also launched the boss of Tesla and SpaceX.
For the Biden administration, a lack of budget agreement risks “harming hard-working Americans” and of “create instability”. “Republicans should stop playing political games”denounced White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre in a press release.
“A Christmas present to the left”
The Republican President of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, presented this budget agreement of more than 1,500 pages on Tuesday. Negotiated with the Democrats, it included, among other things, more than $100 billion in aid against natural disasters requested by Joe Biden. Aid which should notably benefit states with a Republican majority recently hit hard by hurricanes: North Carolina and Florida in particular. The text also made it possible to finance the federal state until mid-March and thus avoid the “shutdown”, before the fateful hour of midnight on the night of Friday to Saturday.
Without this, the United States would experience a paralysis of federal public services, resulting in technical unemployment for hundreds of thousands of civil servants, the freezing of several social benefits and even the closure of certain daycare centers. An extremely unpopular situation, especially in the run-up to Christmas. As soon as the agreement negotiated in Congress was published, Trumpist elected officials – supporters of a slimming down of the federal state – protested at what they considered to be irrational spending. This bill represents “a Christmas present to the left”launched elected official Russell Fry.
The leader of the Democrats in the lower house, Hakeem Jeffries, declared that with this opposition from Donald Trump, the Republican elected officials had “received orders to paralyze the state” and of “make the American workers they claim to support suffer”. Other Democrats denounced Elon Musk’s influence on the president-elect’s decision. “Tonight, Donald Trump and Republican elected officials kowtowed to the real president-elect, Elon Musk”castigated New York elected official Nydia Velazquez.
“A vicious trap”
The next steps to avoid a “shutdown” are now uncertain. For some Trumpist elected officials, a new bill providing for much less spending should be quickly presented to Congress, a solution to which the president-elect adheres, but not unconditionally. On Truth Social, Donald Trump assured that such a text would be of no use if it was not accompanied by an increase in the debt ceiling.
The United States has the particularity of regularly coming up against a legal constraint concerning its credit capacity: this debt ceiling, or their maximum amount of debt, which must be formally raised or suspended by Congress. A suspension decided in 2023 expires at the beginning of January and the United States should reach the ceiling in June. Donald Trump therefore declared on Wednesday that he wanted to avoid this «guillotine», “a vicious trap” put in place according to him last year by the Democrats. Without raising or resuspending the ceiling, “I will fight to the end”wrote Donald Trump, saying he wanted everything to be resolved before January 20.
