2024-01-07 21:12:16
Almost two weeks before another deadline expires, the divided party leaders in the US Congress have reached a fundamental agreement in the budget dispute. The Republican chairman of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, and the Democratic majority leader in the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, agreed on Sunday on a cap of 1,590 billion dollars (1,455.91 billion euros) for the current budget year. This now enables committee consultations to begin.
In a letter to MPs, Johnson emphasized that significant spending cuts had been achieved compared to previous planning. In particular, emergency spending was put on hold, “which might save taxpayers $200 billion over the next ten years.” “The result means real savings for American taxpayers and real cuts in federal bureaucracy,” Johnson said.
Specifically, two maximums were agreed upon: $886 billion for defense spending and $704 billion for all remaining federal spending. The exact distribution must now be determined by the responsible committees in the House of Representatives and Senate. The additional political demands or “poison pills” with which the opposition Republicans want to force a change in government policy – for example in the area of migration – were excluded. Therefore, an actual agreement on the budget conflict remains questionable. Schumer and his Democratic colleague in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, emphasized that the ruling party would not agree to any “poison pills”. This was made clear to Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during the negotiations.
In mid-November, the two chambers of parliament had already reached a preliminary agreement, but this only postponed the solution for a good two months. If there is no decision by January 19th, the USA faces a government shutdown because no further government spending is possible.
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