The shutdown Christmas will not take place. On Saturday, December 21, the United States narrowly avoided a budgetary paralysis that would have sent hundreds of thousands of civil servants home for the holidays without pay.
Ending a tumultuous sequence of several days involving Donald Trump and Elon Musk, Congress largely adopted a law which ensures federal funding until mid-March. The text notably includes more than 100 billion dollars in aid for American regions recently devastated by natural disasters.
The final vote in the Senate took place shortly after the midnight deadline. Joe Biden then signed the text into law on Saturday morning, the White House said. The outgoing American president welcomed, in a press release, a ” compromise “ between Democrats and Republicans, thus avoiding a « shutdown ». “This is good news for Americans” before the end of year holidays, continued the Democrat.
Read the editorial of “Le Monde” | Donald Trump is already in business, so is Elon Musk
Read later
Musk and Trump blew up a deal
A budgetary paralysis would have meant technical unemployment for hundreds of thousands of civil servants, the freezing of social assistance or even the closure of certain nurseries. An extremely unpopular situation, just before Christmas.
Democrats and Republicans alike thought on Tuesday that they had avoided any saga when the Republican President of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, announced that the two camps had reached a consensus on a budget text.
But Elon Musk then Donald Trump dynamited the agreement the next day. “Kill the text”had thundered the richest man in the world to the elected representatives of Congress on his social network “bankruptcy”. The boss of SpaceX and Tesla, who became an ally of Donald Trump, was followed a few hours later by the president-elect, who castigated a text “extraordinarily expensive”.
Their opposition had nipped the bill in the bud and offered a foretaste of Donald Trump's second term, with an uncompromising style, even if it meant causing chaos, reminiscent of his first four years in the White House. But his return to power on January 20 will be accompanied by a major difference: the omnipresence at his side of Elon Musk, who has only grown in power in recent months.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Elon Musk plans to cut federal spending in the United States, without refraining from touching the defense budget
Read later
Trump's silence
The law adopted Friday does not include an increase in 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 “until the end” against.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers How Elon Musk and Donald Trump pushed Congress to the brink of budgetary shutdown
Read later
Usually verbose on his Truth Social platform, he has remained silent on the new plan. As of Saturday noon, the Republican billionaire had not publicly commented on the adoption of the text. Mike Johnson assured after the vote in the House that he was in « contact constant » with Donald Trump and that he was “happy with the result”. The media Traffic lights however reported that the future president was unhappy with the lack of provision on the debt ceiling.
The Memorable World
Test your general knowledge with the editorial staff of “Le Monde”
Test your general knowledge with the editorial staff of “Le Monde”
Discover
Mike Johnson also said he spoke with Elon Musk, who greeted on “good job” of « speaker » to renegotiate 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 Truth Social 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”.
