The US government, amid uncertainty surrounding the shutdown, began informing government employees about a possible government shutdown.
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Authorities have begun sending letters to government employees warning of the “growing risk that millions of employees and military personnel could lose their pay in just three days” unless lawmakers reach an agreement on federal funding over the weekend.
A temporary US government shutdown could occur on October 1st.
The US government could be partially shut down on Sunday as the Senate and House of Representatives remain unable to resolve differences over the size of the next 12 months’ budget, aid to Ukraine, immigration controls and social welfare programs.
On Thursday, government agencies began notifying employees of possible work stoppages.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell warned lawmakers of the dire consequences of a partial government shutdown, including the difficulty of controlling the influx of migrants at the border with Mexico.
Shutting down the government is not the same as pressing pause, McConnell said. “This is not an intermission to pick up where we left off.” This is a proposal that will cause obvious damage. Instead of significant policy results, it actually takes the important progress that has been made on a number of key issues and reverses it.
If short-term funding agreements are not reached, more than 4 million US military and government employees will not receive pay.
At the same time, such important work as managing air traffic and processing entry into the country at the border will continue.
Retirees may face delays in payments from the government to pay bills and buy groceries, and national parks may be closed, Voice of America writes.
Over the past ten years, the American government has been closed four times, but, as a rule, only for a day or two, during which legislators managed to find a compromise that allowed government agencies to fully resume work. But one shutdown, under President Donald Trump, lasted 35 days.
In May, McCarthy reached an agreement with Democratic President Joe Biden on spending levels for the 2024 fiscal year, but a small group of far-right Republican lawmakers rejected it and are demanding further budget cuts.
Some of the most conservative lawmakers want to sharply reduce or end U.S. aid to Ukraine, even as members of the mainstream Republican Party strongly support Kyiv’s fight against the Russian invasion.
The Senate’s short-term spending plan could pass the House by mid-November, but only with a mix of Republican and Democratic votes.
But hardliners among Republican lawmakers have threatened to oust McCarthy as speaker if he tries to pass a spending bill with Democratic votes.
Speaking to a group of donors at a fundraiser in San Francisco on Wednesday, Biden said:
I think that the Speaker was faced with a choice between maintaining the position of Speaker and the interests of America.
On Tuesday, McCarthy said a government shutdown could be avoided if Biden negotiated on border security issues.
McCarthy’s resignation?
The Time wrote that far-right Republicans are planning to remove Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy from office immediately after the shutdown is announced.
It reports that the “Trumpists,” who are blocking the allocation of additional aid to Ukraine and a number of other budget expenditures in the financing project for 2024, are hatching a plan to remove their fellow party member from the post of speaker.
Some Republicans, led by Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor-Green and several others, may put McCarthy’s resignation to a vote this Sunday at 12:00 – that is, on the first day of the shutdown, if congressmen still fail to reach an agreement in the next 24 hours.
The radical position of the right wing of the Republican Party is not satisfied not only with the draft of the future budget, but also with the overall political position of McCarthy, who is initially trying to negotiate with the Democrats, who have a majority in the Senate, as well as significant influence in the House of Representatives.
The speaker’s position is complicated by the fact that balancing between dissatisfied groups on both sides is becoming increasingly difficult. On the one hand, ignoring the views of fellow party members (even if McCarthy does not entirely agree with them, as he stated earlier) could lead to a loss of support among Republicans.
On the other hand, Democrats may put to a vote the question of the politician’s resignation if the Joe Biden administration’s requests for the defense budget and other expenses for next year are disapproved.
McCarthy himself still expresses confidence that the parties will still be able to reach a common decision, but both in Congress and among US political analysts, doubts about this are growing.
I think that now the speaker is choosing between maintaining his own position and the interests of the United States, Joe Biden summed up McCarthy’s difficult situation.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.