The specter of a long budgetary paralysis recedes

(Washington) The threat of a long budgetary paralysis in the United States receded significantly on Friday after the adoption in the lower house of Congress of a text with ample support from elected Democrats and Republicans alike.

The Senate must now validate it, without assurance that a vote will take place before midnight (0 a.m. [heure de l’Est] Saturday), time when the United States will find itself in a “shutdown” situation.

The broad consensus between the two parties in the House of Representatives gave hope, however, that a possible paralysis would be resolved quickly.

“We hope to pass it as soon as possible,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, without specifying when a vote could take place.

The White House said Joe Biden also supported the text, “even if it doesn't include everything we wanted.”

A prolonged “shutdown” would mean technical unemployment for hundreds of thousands of civil servants, the freezing of social assistance or even the closure of certain daycare centers. An extremely unpopular situation, especially as Christmas approaches.

The text adopted in the House of Representatives would ensure funding for the federal government until mid-March and notably includes more than $100 billion in aid for American regions recently devastated by natural disasters.

A sum already present in a first text announced Tuesday by the Republican President of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, following negotiations with the Democrats.

The agreement would have made it possible to repel any threat of a “shutdown”, but was spectacularly torpedoed the next day by Elon Musk then Donald Trump.

Negotiations

The richest man in the world, who became an ally of the Republican billionaire, launched a virulent burst of posts on his social network X, urging elected officials to “kill the text”.

The president-designate followed suit in the evening and denounced a “ridiculous and extraordinarily onerous” text.

This twist took Congress by surprise and forced those responsible for the negotiations to start from scratch. He also gave a glimpse of a Trump 2.0 presidency even before the Republican took office on January 20. With a style – similar to his first mandate – not bothering with conventions, even if it means causing a certain chaos.

Elon Musk's resounding opposition also illustrated the growing influence of the boss of SpaceX and Tesla on major political decisions.

To the point that some elected Democrats are ironic about a “President Musk”, to whom Donald Trump would be reduced to the role of vassal.

Main person responsible for the discussions, the “speaker” Mike Johnson was pressed on the one hand by the Democrats to return to the negotiated text, and on the other by certain elected conservatives who refused en bloc any text that did not include a budget cut to compensate for the new aid.

In view of the divisions on the right, the influential Republican elected official James Comer warned on Thursday that for Congress to adopt a text, it would be necessary “obviously to have support on the Democratic side”.

“Good job”

The new plan voted on Friday does not involve raising the United States debt ceiling, although Donald Trump opposed the first text mainly for this reason.

The president-elect had even made it a sine qua non condition for any new budget agreement, otherwise he would fight “to the end” against it.

He still had not reacted Friday evening on this new plan. Mike Johnson assured after the vote that he had been in “constant contact” with the president-elect and that he was “happy with the result”. The Semafor media outlet, however, reported that Donald Trump was unhappy with the lack of provision for the debt ceiling.

Mike Johnson also said he had spoken with Elon Musk, who praised on X the “good job” of the “speaker” in renegotiating the budgetary text downwards.

Each party had previously pointed the finger at the other to attribute responsibility for a possible paralysis.

“This is a problem that Biden must solve,” Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Friday morning.

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier Friday that, on the contrary, it was up to the Republicans “to resolve the mess they created.”