US Congressional leaders reach agreement to avoid government shutdown

Almost six months late, the United States Congress is preparing to approve the last pending budget laws. Republican and Democratic parliamentary leaders have reached an agreement that must still be approved by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but which would definitively chase away the specter of a partial closure of the Administration.

“We have reached agreement with congressional leaders on the path forward with full-year funding bills. “The House of Representatives and the Senate are now working to finalize a package of measures that can be presented quickly, and which I will sign immediately,” said the president, Joe Biden, in a statement released by the White House.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have made similar announcements. The spending levels of the Department of Homeland Security remained to be agreed upon and an agreement has been reached, the details of which have not been revealed. That Department is responsible for the border, which has become a star issue of the November presidential campaign. Republicans recently rejected a bill that would have allocated more than $20 billion to combat illegal immigration.

Congress approved the first part of the spending laws in early March, funding about 30% of the government. Now they focus on the broader package. The laws that finance the Pentagon and the State Department, among others, on which there was already agreement, also remain to be finished drafting and voting.

Parliamentarians have until midnight on Friday to draft the rules and approve the package with the pending items. The Republican Party's internal rules require a minimum of 72 hours to study any bill, but its leaders have skipped it when necessary.

“The House and Senate committees have begun drafting the text of the bill, which will be prepared for publication and consideration by the full House and Senate as soon as possible,” Johnson has indicated.

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The United States does not have one budget law, but a dozen, but is systemically unable to approve them in time for the start of the fiscal year, on October 1. The last time it did so on time was in 1997. The usual thing is to approve a budget extension, called a continuing resolution, while the laws that enable the expenses of the year are processed, which usually follow a cumbersome and complex procedure, full of amendments.

Congress has been approving successive extensions. The first of them cost the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, his job. Curiously, his successor, Mike Johnson, has agreed to measures similar to that one that have had even less support from Republicans, but has not received a motion of censure like McCarthy.

Aid to Ukraine was left out of the budget extensions on each occasion. The approved laws also do not grant financing to resume it. The bill that Biden made and which included aid to Ukraine and Israel, among others, remains stuck in Congress.

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