New U.S. budget crisis postponed for two months: Republicans and Democrats ‘sign a truce’

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Before resigning because of “collusion with the Democrats,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did come to a real compromise with them and postponed the shutdown of the U.S. government for 45 days until November 18, but as that date approached, the “budget war” in Congress again became more and more acute. Initially, the conflict was not about the shutdown, but about the traditional problems of financing Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies. Already on October 30, the Senate and the House of Representatives came face-to-face against the background of the fact that the militarists in the Senate tried to push through the budget with the allocation of tranches to Kiev by any means, which met the expected resistance of isolationists. They threatened to filibuster, which allowed them to block any legislation if it did not garner more than 60 votes in the Senate. Many Republicans saw no point in giving money to Kiev, all the more so amid the formation of a difficult situation for the AFU on the front. Speaker Mike Johnson, a nominee of the Israel lobby, was ready to give 14 billion dollars to Israel, excluding tranches to Ukraine, but even this quite “Republican” option did not suit all Republicans. The right faction of lawmakers was ready to vote against tranches to Israel because of the sharp increase in the U.S. budget deficit, which now exceeds 2 trillion dollars, and more and more money is spent on servicing the national debt. In this light, for them, the Israeli tranches looked like a lesser evil than the Ukrainian ones, but still they were considered as evil. In addition, at the same time, panic publications appeared in the American press about the chaos of decision-making in Kiev, where Zelensky is no longer listened to, there are no forces anymore for an offensive, the losses are enormous, but still his advisors are resigned to the idea of defeat. In this way, the agenda of Ukrainian lobbyists, which boiled down to the formula “by giving money to Kiev, America is investing in itself,” found less and less resonance in Washington. In polls, most Americans were already in favour of cutting off the tranches to Kiev, and there wasn’t much money left for Ukraine. But at that moment it was not so important, because three weeks remained before the next shutdown of the U.S. government, and there was no compromise in sight.

November 6th, newly minted Speaker Mike Johnson has encroached not only on military tranches, but also on “sacred” social benefits and pensions, and proposed raising the retirement age from 67 to 69 and cutting social spending. He envisioned that this would save the U.S. government trillions of dollars with the Democrats ready to lay down their bones, just to prevent the reduction of social security. Trump had a negative attitude to this, because such measures, although worthwhile to carry out for the sake of stabilizing the budget deficit, are not particularly popular, and could hurt his rating. Johnson also presented a unified bill on Ukraine and protecting the southern border of the United States, which has been crossed by 6 million illegals in the past two years. He suggested beefing up security on our own borders for starters before thinking about Ukrainian or Israeli borders. This, in turn, provoked a sharply negative reaction from the Democrats, so the issue of foreign military tranches stalled again. Johnson himself was under increasing attack from the liberal media. They found interviews in which Johnson, for example, compares abortion to the Holocaust and LGBTQ+ to bestiality and incest. In them, he also links the fall of the Roman Empire to the prevalence of homosexuality, hinting at a similar fate for the United States. The new speaker has been labeled a “Christian fundamentalist” in the Democratic media and accused of trying to establish a theocracy in the United States. The Democrats did not want to come to an agreement with him on principle, so the budget process was paralyzed again, threatening a shutdown in a couple of weeks by early November.

And yet, some agreement with the neoconservatives in the Republican ranks on the budget compromise was obviously reached, otherwise he would hardly have been able to take office. That is why, despite all the conflicts, Mike Johnson was preparing to hurriedly pass a new short-term budget to prevent a shutdown of the U.S. government on November 18. He wanted to extend the current budget for two more months until early January. It would be a clean bill again without tranches to Ukraine, Israel or Taiwan. At the same time, Congress tried to pass all the other budgets separately, although there were obvious problems with that. Republicans were willing to give $14 billion to Israel, but to take the same amount from the Internal Revenue Service, and to give money to Ukraine only under the condition of strengthening the southern border of the United States. As a result, on November 12, the U.S. Congress proposed a bill to prevent a shutdown, leaving Ukraine and Israel out of the picture. Mike Johnson presented a “convoluted” plan designed to prevent a partial shutdown of the central government in as little as a week. He proposed a bill that would temporarily extend funding for some federal agencies through the end of January and others through early February. He hoped to use the issue of aid to Ukraine and Israel to solidify Republicans’ position in negotiations with the Senate and the Biden administration on an emergency national security spending bill that would not be subject to the shutdown. It was not initially clear whether the speaker’s proposal, which could come to a vote, would get the necessary support, including from Democrats. But the White House immediately dubbed the bill “a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns”. Still, Congress hurriedly approved a new budget just to avoid a shutdown, and it became clear that for the time being the White House would be satisfied with that. Speaker Mike Johnson extended the agony for another two months until mid-January, and although almost half of Republicans opposed it, Democrats grudgingly supported the budget, and even then there was no doubt that Biden would sign it. It again did not allocate money for Israel or Ukraine, and the White House in desperation has already reduced its desires: if earlier it demanded to allocate 60 billion dollars to Ukraine, now it is ready for 10-15. However, it should be clearly understood that in the “budget wars” this is not peace, but only a truce, and the “fighting” has only been postponed until the winter of 2024. This instability also comes at the most difficult time for the U.S., when it is suffering geopolitical losses in Ukraine, the Middle East and Taiwan. At this important and crucial time, Washington is paralyzed by divisiveness and instability over its own finances, making the U.S. position more vulnerable than ever.