The US Congress has adopted an interim budget guaranteeing federal funding until mid-February, thus avoiding the risk of a new shutdown, paralyzing many of its services, which would put millions of civil servants out of technical unemployment by the weekend.
With 69 votes in favor and 28 against, the Senate, which has very little control over the Democrats, approved the budget bill, which in essence simply extends the current budget until February 18, 2022.
Hours earlier, the bill passed the House of Representatives by 221 votes to 212, with only one member of the Republican caucus approving it.
It is now up to Democratic President Joe Biden to sign and ratify the bill by midnight on Friday, to avoid the risk of being cut off from funding by federal government services.
Some Republicans in the Senate, including Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Roger Marshall, have called for a new shutdown in protest of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration’s attempt to make COV vaccination mandatory.
If the federal state’s branches were suspended in anticipation of the holidays, the political costs would be heavy for both parties, but especially for the coalition, the Democrats, who control, albeit marginally, Congress.
Even more pressing is the next deadline facing the US parliament, the one on the federal borrowing limit ($ 28.9 trillion), which will be met on December 15, according to the calculations of the Ministry of Finance. If the borrowing limit is not raised or lifted, the US will run the risk of being forced to default for the first time in its history, with disastrous consequences.
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